Kanye West Has Changed His Name

Meet 'Ye'
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 30, 2018 6:11 AM CDT
Kanye West Has Changed His Name
In this Sept. 10, 2015 file photo, Kanye West appears at the Brother Vellies Spring 2016 collection presentation during Fashion Week, in New York.   (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Kanye West has changed his name at age 41, and rather than adding a "Kardashian" to his moniker, the rapper has selected two letters from his name to go by and is dropping the rest. "The being formally (sic) known as Kanye West," he tweeted Saturday night, ahead of his gig on Saturday Night Live. "I am YE." Ye has been a longtime nickname, and he even chose it as the title of his June album, notes the Guardian.

But there's also personal significance, notes People: "I believe YE is the most commonly used word in the Bible," he said in June, when the album was released. "In the Bible it means 'you.' So I'm you, I'm us. It went from being Kanye, which means the only one, to being just YE—just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything. I’m just more a reflection of who we are." Ye's new album, Yandhi, dropped Saturday night; in it, he raps about "givin' up my slave name." Sky News has a list of more celebrities who've changed their names after years in the limelight. (More Kanye West stories.)

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