Ahead of the release of his new album, DONDA, and on the heels of his separation from his wife, Kanye West appears to be looking for a fresh start.

The billionaire hip hop and fashion mogul has officially filed papers to change his name to just ‘Ye’.

But it’s not the first time the name change has come up. In fact, his petition, which will now have to be approved by a judge to go forward, is simply aimed at formalising an announcement he made in 2018, when he publicly stated on Twitter that he was “the being formally (psst, he meant ‘formerly’) known as Kanye West. I am Ye”.

At the time, he explained the name change during a radio interview where he said: “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.”

Ye was the title of an album he released that year and he went further in the radio interview to say his name went from ‘Kanye’, which means ‘the only one’, to Ye, which he interpretted as “a reflection of our good, our bad, our confused, everything”.

CITED ‘PERSONAL REASONS’ IN COURT PETITION

Though in his court petition he only cited “personal reasons” for the name change, you’ve got to give it to Ye. That 2018 radio interview shows that, behind the often strange behaviour from this artiste, there is a certain ‘logic’ that could be argued as either genius-level philosophy or utter rubbish, depending on how you feel on the day.

But how does his estranged wife feel about it?

Kim Kardashian West has now come out to say while she supports her husband of seven years in his name change, she will be keeping the West.

According to tabloid website TMZ’s sources, Kim feels it’s important for her to keep the same last name as her four children – North, Psalm, Chicago and Saint – and that there are no plans to change their names.