Cuck (formerly known as WW3 and later In a Perfect World) is an unreleased studio album by American rapper Kanye West, created in collaboration with fellow rapper Dave Blunts between February and June 2025. Media personality DJ Akademiks announced the album on April 2, 2025, a week after the release of the lead single, "WW3". Blunts's frequent collaborators Quadwoofer and Sheffmade were the primary producers, with contributions from West and Digital Nas, among others. Cuck drew outrage and condemnation for its antisemitic lyrical content. In early 2025, West caused controversy by making antisemitic statements, endorsing Nazism, and insulting past associates on his X account. Blunts, Cuck's songwriter, wrote tracks based on conversations with West as well as West's X posts. The songs feature controversial subject matter such as praise for Adolf Hitler, West's incestuous relationship with a male cousin, nitrous oxide use, and defenses of Sean Combs. Some songs use artificial intelligence-generated audio deepfakes of West's voice over Blunts. West promoted Cuck with the singles "Cousins" and "Heil Hitler" between April and May. Cuck was leaked online in May following a charity crowdfunding campaign, the proceeds of which were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. West began to retract his antisemitic statements afterwards, releasing censored versions of "WW3" and "Heil Hitler" and renaming the album In a Perfect World. By January 2026, West had apologized for his antisemitic remarks and removed the Cuck singles from streaming services. The Cuck song "Diddy Free" was given to King Combs and released on his EP Never Stop (2025), while "Gas Chambers" was repurposed as "All the Love" for West's 2026 album Bully.
Background and recording
Collaborations with Dave Blunts In February 2025, West met Dave Blunts through a mutual connection after West became a fan of Blunts's music. Blunts played his then-unreleased album You Can't Say That (2025) to West, who loved it and asked him to write an entire album with a similar vibe, leading to the creation of Cuck. Blunts soon began writing and recording demos for the album, spending around 20 to 30 minutes on each and basing their lyrics off of his phone calls and in-person conversations with West, as well as tweets West was posting at the time. According to West, these calls would last several hours. Most of Blunts's songs were written quickly and received immediate praise from West, though he sometimes asked for rewrites, resulting in Blunts rewriting a track upwards of twenty times at West's request. Despite being known for his production, Blunts was not provided beats by West for recording, causing him to bring frequent collaborators Quadwoofer and Sheffmade with him when touring to ensure he would have material to write on. The duo later became the primary producers for Cuck. Regarding the creation of "Cousins", Blunts recalled that he wrote the song for West after the latter told him about his former relationship with his cousin, being able to tell that the song was "very freeing for him" when conceptualizing it. Blunts believed West chose him for songwriting due to having a "blunt approach to it" without double entendres. Quadwoofer and Sheffmade were asleep when Blunts recorded his demo for the song, leading him to instead use a beat he downloaded off of YouTube. Blunts had repeatedly denied that the lyrical content of Cuck is antisemitic, describing the album as being "about one man going between hurt, betrayal and pain and he's putting that shit down..." On September 13, 2025, Blunts took to Instagram to announce that he was cutting ties with West and would no longer work on the album, urging him to "find God". He later released several diss tracks aimed at West, which alleged that West "groomed" him into writing the album's antisemitic lyrics.
Leak On May 18, 2025, the album was leaked in its entirety after a US$999 charity group buy for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via the messaging site Discord. The leaked album files contained derogatory messaging towards West in its media and metadata as a form of protest, including listing Blunts as the song artist instead of West, listing "AI" and "1945" as its genre and date respectively, and replacing the cover with a 1994 picture of West wearing an antifascist shirt with the title "Fuck Nazis" and a subtitle—"50 year old loser promoting fascism and hate speech"—overlaid onto it. West acknowledged the leak on Twitter, clarifying that the song "Uncle" was no longer part of the album and its lyrics were not related to his wife Censori. According to West, the copy was compiled from a drive, and alongside getting blocked from digital service providers and shows cancelled, "it proves everything I'm saying and why I'm saying." Members in the Discord server where the leak originated later claimed that the individual responsible for leaking the album had bought it from someone in West's inner circle.
Promotion
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