The artist formerly known as Kanye West is asking the music industry to only refer to him as Ye, which became the rapper's legal name in 2021.
TMZ reports Ye's chief of staff, former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos, issued a letter this week asking streaming platforms, publishers, stores, unions, lyric websites, and more to call Kanye his legal name moving forward.
"Ye is one of the most recognizable people in the world, on par with presidents nad popes," the letter read. "He didn't take the decision to change his name, potentially sacrificing some of the immense value captured by the brand of 'Kanye West,' lightly. The change was made fully, legally, and permanently. This is who he is now. His name is Ye."
Yiannopoulos added that Kanye is simply "a Black man in America who wants the right to full self-determination just like everyone else."
The letter arrives over two years after a Los Angeles judge in October 2021 approved Kanye's petition to change his legal identity to just his longtime nickname.
Three years earlier, following the release of his 2018 album Ye, West teased his forthcoming name change on Twitter, referring to himself as “the being formally known as Kanye West.” He added, “I am YE.”
“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you,’” he told Big Boy while they were in Wyoming for the listening party for the album. “So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us. It went from Kanye, which means the only one, to just Ye. Just being a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything. The album is more of a reflection of who we are."
