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New York - Kanye West has decided that he now wants to be called Ye. But on political matters, nothing has changed for the pro-Trump rapper.
"The being formally known as Kanye West. I am Ye," he wrote on Twitter ahead of his appearance on Saturday Night Live.
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Ye has long been a nickname for West, along with Yeezy, and he also chose Ye as the title of his last album.
He has previously said that he found a spiritual significance to "Ye" - the plural or formal version of the second-person pronoun in Middle English - as he so frequently read it in the Bible.
West - or, rather, Ye - announced the name change shortly before he appeared on SNL, the widely watched television skit show.
He performed with fellow rapper Lil Pump dressed as water bottles, drawing an overwhelmingly negative reaction on social media where a number of professed fans questioned his creative direction.
West closed the show by singing a track off Ye while wearing one of President Donald Trump's signature red "Make America Great Again" caps.
After the live show ended, West stayed on the microphone and gave an impromptu speech about politics, again voicing his support for the president.
"So many times I talk to a white person about this and they say, 'How could you like Trump? He's racist,'" West said, according to footage posted on Instagram Stories by comedian Chris Rock.
"Well, if I was concerned about racism, I would have moved out of America a long time ago."
He also accused the rival Democratic Party of seeking to keep people dependent on welfare payments and repeated his interest in running for president himself in 2020 - when Trump would face re-election.
His speech was met with a smattering of applause but louder booing from the New York audience.
West recently promised that a new album, called Yahndi, would come out on Saturday but no work immediately appeared.
