Kanye West has made the move of filing for court documents to formally change his name to Ye, a nickname he has been gone by for years.
The rapper, 44, formally filed a petition to change his name from his moniker Kanye Omari West to just Ye, with no middle name or last name, according to Los Angeles Superior Court documents obtained by The Associated Press.
West cited ‘personal’ reasons behind his decision to change his name in legal documents, however did not provide any other details.
The rapper, who has used the moniker as a nickname for years, named his eighth studio album Ye and even goes by the abbreviated title on Twitter.
The filing was done in Los Angeles, according to TMZ, which claimed Kanye’s request would be approved by a judge considering the rules surrounding name changes in the state of California. Judges ordinarily approve name changes so long as no evidence exists that the new moniker will be used to commit fraud.
The legal filing may not come as a surprise to die hard Kanye fans, who will probably remember the rapper wanting to be referred to as Ye back in 2018.
In a tweet, the rapper declared at the time: ‘The being formally known as Kanye West. I am YE.’
Kanye also revealed that same year he was inspired by the Bible when naming his eighth studio album Ye.
“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you,” he told radio host Big Boy.
“So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us. It went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye – just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything. The album is more of a reflection of who we are.”
Kanye West is expected to release his highly anticipated and much delayed next album Donda on Friday, August 27.
Kanye has held two listening events for the album at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, both to massive numbers, with respective totals of 3.3 million and 5.4 million people streaming the events on Apple Music.
The rapper will be holding another listening party at Soldier Field in his hometown of Chicago on Thursday, and photos posted on Twitter suggest Kanye is having a replica of his childhood home built on stage for the event.
