The North West debut EP N0rth4evr has already drawn serious critical attention, with According2HipHop reporting that Rolling Stone awarded it four stars out of five, a striking reception for a six-track release from a 13-year-old still in her first year of public performances.
North, the eldest child of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, dropped the EP on 1 May 2026. The project blends heavy guitar with vocals and a punk-leaning rap style, and its title track came with a music video the day before release, on 30 April. In it, North leans into an early-2000s punk aesthetic (striped arm warmers, spiked accessories, Converse sneakers) with glitchy visual effects to match. On the song, she raps: ‘I don’t listen but they talk about me all day. Everywhere I go feelin’ like a runway.’
What’s on the North West Debut EP
The six tracks are ‘H0w Sh0uld ! f33l,’ ‘D!e,’ ‘N0rth4evr,’ ‘Th!s t!m3,’ ‘W0ah,’ and ‘Aishite (愛して).’ That final track, whose title translates from Japanese as ‘love me,’ got its own music video in August 2026. The deliberately garbled spelling across the tracklist fits the project’s overall aesthetic: lo-fi, confrontational, visually distinct from anything else in her parents’ orbit.
North told Dazed in August 2026 that Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape was a direct inspiration. ‘When I first heard it I was like, “Oh my gosh!” And people were hating on it for no reason. That’s what inspired my EP too. When I heard that, I was like, “Wow, this is life-changing.” I told him that Pink Tape changed my life.’ She also pushed back on anyone who suggested she wait before pursuing music professionally. When asked about the worst advice she had received, her answer was blunt: ‘To start my career later. It’s like, nah, this is my hobby, this is what I like to do, this is what I wanna do with my life.’
From the Vic Theatre to Rolling Stone: North West’s First Solo Show
On 5 September 2026, North played her first headline show at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, with both parents in the audience. Kanye was in town following his own shows at Soldier Field; Kardashian had visited her Skims flagship store in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighbourhood earlier that day. North performed an unreleased track featuring a sample of Ye’s ‘Coldest Winter,’ taken from his 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak, which she had previously teased on a livestream.
She had made her first solo festival appearance at Summer Smash in June 2026, and reflected on it in the same Dazed interview. ‘Yeah, I wish I’d done it earlier, though. I’ve been ready,’ she said. Asked to describe performing in three words, she chose: ‘Fun, relieving, and exciting.’ Her preparation has become more rigorous as the shows have come. ‘I am obsessed with rehearsing every day,’ she said. ‘I used not to rehearse. I used to want to go out there and just see what happens. But I like dance rehearsing.’
Four stars from Rolling Stone does not happen by accident, and it sits alongside the N0rth4evr project’s broader reception as confirmation that the critical world is taking the North West debut EP on its own terms, not simply as a celebrity footnote.
Kardashian, for her part, has been vocal about what she sees in her daughter. ‘She teaches me a lot,’ she told Billboard-covered Complex Style in September 2025. ‘She has a really unique style. She puts me on to so many brands, like she just loves what she loves. And it’s just really fun to see someone be so creative. And also know herself so much.’
North has already confirmed a second music video release, and with her first headline show behind her, the next question is what a full tour looks like for an artist who has made clear she intends to keep going.
