Kanye West Legally Changes His Name To Just ‘Ye’

By Ahmad Hamizan • 20 Oct 2021 in Music

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Since bursting onto the scene as a baby-faced rhymer from the Chicago suburbs in the early 2000s, through to his highly-publicised, tumultuous post-808s & Heartbreak era, Kanye West has always been the rap game’s enigma.

He pioneered a sound which defined a generation, and greatly influenced the one coming through today. With rappers such as Drake, Kid Cudi, Playboi Carti, & Juice Wrld (just to name a few) citing Kanye as their main inspiration in rap, his status as one of the greats is also without discussion.

Kanye West’s listening party for his seventh album *The Life of Pablo* featured many rap luminaries, such as Pusha T, Kid Cudi, and Travis Scott. (source: USA Today)

Throughout his storied career, Kanye also has many self-anointed monikers, from K-Rock, the Louis Vuitton Don, Yeezy, to simply Pablo. So when he announced three years ago that he was changing his legal name to Ye, fans largely took it with a pinch of salt.

Well the proof is now in the pudding, as earlier this week a Los Angeles judge ruled that the teased name change had been approved.

“There being no objections, the petition for change of name is granted,” said the judge Michelle Williams Court according to court documents.

Ye is also the name of his eight studio album, which was released in 2018. (source: Variety)

It was reported that the artiste’s request was filed on 24 August of this year, and had cited “personal reasons” for the request. He was then in the midst of finalising his much anticipated tenth studio album DONDA, a tribute to his late mother, which dropped worldwide a few days later.

The man formerly known as Kanye is also meanwhile in between divorce proceedings with his longtime-partner Kim Kardashian West, with whom they have four children. Kim, who filed for separation in February, has not yet indicated at present if she will revert back to her maiden name.

This picture from Halloween 2019 tells its own story. (source: W Magazine)

Elaborating on his motivations in a 2018 interview in the lead up to the release of his Ye album, religious iconography was cited.

“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you’,” he said, adding, “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.”

Whatever that means? *shrugs*