James Blake is asking to be removed from the production credits on Kanye West’s latest album.
After nearly a two-year rollout, West’s Bully came out Friday, featuring the closing track “This One Here.” The song’s credits include Blake, Don Toliver, Quentin Miller and West as co-writers.
However, Blake has now asked to taken out of the credits because “the spirit” of his original work is “mostly absent” in the song.
“The way I pitched his vocals and construed the track from his freestyle is partially there, majorly peppered with other newer vocal takes etc.,” the English musician wrote recently on Vault, his streaming platform. “But the spirit of my actual production is mostly absent other than that.”
Blake, 37, added: “Happy for the fans but I’ve asked to be taken off the producer credits for now as I don’t want to take credit for other people’s work and this version isn’t what I created with Ye.”
“It’s not personal!” he assured fans. “I just hit a point where [I] don’t want to be credited on music where I can’t affect the end result.”
Blake and West, 48, have worked together on several projects dating back to 2014. The pair worked on a joint project called WAR in 2022, but no music from it has ever been officially released.
Bully, which is out via YZY and the independent label Gamma, is West’s first new album since 2024. It features artists including Travis Scott, CeeLo Green, Don Toliver, Peso Pluma, Ty Dolla Sign and Nine Vicious.
West, who legally changed his name to Ye in October 2021, has been teasing Bully since September 2024, after the release of his album Vultures 2.
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The album has faced several controversies throughout its rollout. The rapper initially claimed that a large part of the album was made using artificial intelligence, a statement he later retracted.
Earlier this year, West issued an apology for his erratic and hurtful behavior, including posting hateful and anti-Semitic messages on social media that led to his X account getting suspended in 2023 and 2025.
West took out a full page advert in the Wall Street Journal for the apology, stating that his behavior was due to his bipolar disorder and a 2002 brain injury. He later denied accusations that he had issued the apology as a stunt to promote Bully.
“This, for me, as evidenced by the letter, isn’t about reviving my commerciality,” he said in a statement to Vanity Fair in January. “This is because these remorseful feelings were so heavy on my heart and weighing on my spirit.”
