It turns out Kanye West isn’t changing his name – again.
Despite recent speculation that the rapper, who legally changed his name to Ye nearly four years ago, had adopted the new moniker Ye Ye, his team is clearing the air.
“There is no ‘Ye Ye,’” a rep for Ye confirmed to US Weekly on June 16, clarifying that the name confusion stemmed from “an oddity created by an online form that required entries in both the first and last name fields.”
The mix-up originated from business filings submitted to the California Secretary of State by Ye’s chief financial officer, Hussain Lalani. In documents obtained by E! News on June 10, the manager or member of several of Ye’s businesses—Yeezy Apparel, Yeezy Record Label, and Ox Paha Inc—was listed as “Ye Ye,” raising questions online.
Ye, formerly Kanye West, legally changed his name in 2021 for “personal reasons.” He explained the reasoning behind the shift in a 2018 interview with Big Boy, saying, “Ye” is “the most commonly used word in the Bible… In the Bible, it means ‘you.’ So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us.” He added that the name reflects “our good, our bad, our confusion, everything.”
That same year, he titled his eighth studio album Ye, saying it embodied his current energy and mirrored his personal transformation: “I wanted something that felt with the energy… just with what the universe has given me, I wanted something that matched that.”
Since the legal name change, however, Ye has continued to operate under his original handle on X (formerly Twitter)—@kanyewest—until recently. On May 31, he announced he’d be stepping away from that profile and its 33 million followers.
“Ima finally stop using the @kanyewest twitter cause my name is Ye,” he wrote. “Gonna start a ye account and it is what it is.”
While the entertainment industry and media still occasionally refer to him as Kanye West, those close to him insist that the name change should be respected. In March 2024, his former chief of staff Milo Yiannopoulos even sent a letter, obtained by Page Six, urging others to stop using what he called Ye’s “slave name.”
“Ye is one of the most recognizable people in the world, on par with presidents and popes,” Yiannopoulos wrote. “He didn’t take the decision to change his name… lightly. The change was made fully, legally, and permanently. This is who he is now. His name is Ye.” So while the internet may have briefly entertained the idea of “Ye Ye,” it’s still just Ye.