There is officially no more Kanye Omari West – at least not as far as legal paperwork is concerned.
The controversial rapper and fashion mogul filed a petition to legally change his name from Kanye West to simply his abbreviated nickname “Ye” on August 24, citing “personal reasons” at the time.
Los Angeles Judge Michelle Williams Court granted the name change on Monday evening, officially marking the 44-year-old entertainer with the single syllable moniker. There is no accompanying middle or last name.
“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means you,” West said of his shortened name during an appearance on Big Boy TV in 2018. “So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us…[I] went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye – just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything.” Kanye released a 7-song album titled Ye that very same year.
This change comes amid the rapper’s ongoing divorce from wife Kim Kardashian. Kardashian was reportedly recently awarded the Calabasas mansion she and West shared with their four children and the rapper also placed his 6-square mile Wyoming ranch and 7 additional business properties located in the state on the market.
All of West’s most recent public appearances have seen his face either covered by masks, shrouded in fabric or turned away from the camera. In his most recent Instagram post, seen above, the rapper revealed a patchy, haphazard haircut, only captioned with the monetary symbol for Japanese yen.