Kanye West: Rapper changes his name to Ye for new album launch

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Kanye West has announced he is changing his stage name to Ye.

The US rapper said he now wanted to be referred to by the new name in a post on Twitter on Saturday, the same day he was due to release new album, Yandhi, during an appearance on Saturday Night Live.

“The being formally known as Kanye West,” he wrote. “I am YE.”

West has used the moniker at various times throughout his career, while his eighth studio album, released earlier this year, was also called Ye.

In February, West told radio host Big Boy why he had decided to use the shortened version of his name as a title for a record.

“I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you’,” he said.

“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.”

West is not the first recording artist to adopt a change of name mid-career.

In 1993, Prince changed his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol after a dispute with record label Warner Bros, during which time he was commonly referred to as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

Rapper Sean Combs has been known as Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Diddy and Brother Love, while after his conversion to Rastafarianism in 2012, Snoop Dogg briefly changed his name to Snoop Lion.