Similar to the “Divorce” piece he posted over the weekend, “Dead” finds Ye ostensibly working through this tumultuous time in his life: “They ran through my account like the sign said free bread/But no one wanted to tell me I was dead/My kids would dance for me in a home I once led/But kids see ghosts and didn’t know I was dead/Every thing was wrong in the press that I read/Cause nobody would tell me that I was dead.”
In a caption accompanying “Dead,” West said he wouldn’t elaborate further on the meaning of the piece or why he created it. “I will not explain this new piece for the explanation destroys the mystery and magic of true love and puts it in a box that can be counted. Art is subjective. Art only works when it is the artist [sic] absolute truth. Someone’s truth can be another person’s lie. We don’t all have to feel the same because we are not the same.”

Along with sharing “Dead,” West appeared to delete an Instagram post from Monday, March 7, in which he defended his controversial music video for “Eazy.” In the animated clip, the rapper kidnapped and decapitated a claymation figure resembling Pete Davidson. He defended the video on the grounds that “art is protected as freedom of speech,” adding, “Art is not a proxy for any ill or harm. Any suggestion otherwise about my art is false and mal intended.”

West recently released his latest musical project Donda 2, which is still only available on his Stem Player. He also remains embroiled in an ongoing divorce with Kim Kardashian, with a judge declaring Kardashian legally single at the beginning of March.