I hate to break it to you, but I’m not calling him Ye.
His mama named him Kanye, I’m gonna call him Kanye.
But really, it doesn’t matter what I want to call him, seeing as how a Los Angeles judge officially approved the The Life of Pablo artist to legally change his name to ‘Ye’ on Monday. According to Deadline, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West will now be going by Ye—no middle name, no last name. Just Ye.
For context, Yeezy previously filed to have his name legally changed back in August, stating that he was making the change for “personal reasons.” Folks will likely also remember that 2018 album of the same name and the subsequent tweet where West proclaimed (brackets ours): “The being formally [formerly?] known as Kanye West. I am YE.” He further elaborated on the name choice in a radio interview with host Big Boy, saying:
“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you.’ So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us. [My name] went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye–just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything.”
Additionally, in an attempt to further cement his new name into our collective psyche (because why else would he be out here looking like this?), Ye was also recently spotted rocking a, uhh, new lewk of sorts, in a McDonalds in Sweden. He formally debuted his new haircut in an Instagram post on Monday.
*Deep, heavy, Yeezus spiritual sigh*
What—and I can’t stress this enough—TF is this? No, seriously, what the hell are we looking at here? Is there a rhyme or reason to this? Who was the barber? Bibby from Atlanta? Is this why he’s been wearing all these weird, Caucasian-esque masks here lately?
I mean, I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised at any of Ye’s antics at this point—and yes, there is also the consideration of how his self-acknowledged bipolar diagnosis informs his creative license. But I’d be lying if I said the displays weren’t getting more and more ridiculous by the year. Seriously—no one man should have all this power.