Kanye Omari West will now officially be known as just Ye. Los Angeles Judge Michelle Williams granted the rapper’s name change request, confirmed by a communications officer at the Los Angeles Superior Court.
The 44-year-old rapper filed the name change request in August, citing “personal reasons.” He already used Ye as a nickname and in 2018 created an album titled Ye. After the album’s release, he tweeted, “The being formally known as Kanye West. I am YE.”
His Twitter handle was already Ye, but as of Tuesday his Instagram and website were still using his previous name.
Aside from being a shortened version of Kanye, the new name also has religious significance for the rap star.
“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means you. So it’s I’m you, I’m us, it’s us,” he said in an interview with radio host Big Boy in 2018.
“It went from being Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, our everything.”
