The 41-year-old rapper is reinventing himself.
Kanye West is no longer -- say hello to YE.
The 41-year-old rapper announced on Twitter on Saturday that he's changing his professional name to YE, just hours before he'll take the stage to perform on the season 44 premiere of Saturday Night Live, and drop his new album.
"The being formally [sic] known as Kanye West. I am YE," he tweeted.
West isn't the only musician to undergo a name change. Prince, Diddy and Snoop Dogg are just a few of the artists who have rebranded themselves, but for Kim Kardashian's husband, the name YE is pretty special. The moniker has long been a nickname for the rapper, who also used it as the title for his last album.
“I believe YE is the most commonly used word in the Bible,” he recently told Real 92.3’s Big Boy when promoting his music in June. “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.”
Fans were quick to point out that the rapper teased his name change in a song off his new album, Yandi. In the song, which he played for employees at Fader on Thursday, YE sings, “I’m givin’ up my slave name / I’m givin’ up my slave name."
"Saint, you don’t really need a last name / North, you don’t really need a last name,” he sang of his oldest two children with Kardashian.
YE's new album, Yandi, is set to drop on Saturday night, after his performance on SNL.
Earlier this month, YE announced that he was moving back to his hometown of Chicago, Illinois.
“I’ve got to let you all know that I’m moving back to Chicago and I’m never leaving again," he told the crowd at Chance the Rapper's Open Mike event at the city's Harold Washington Library Center.
See more on YE in the video below.
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