Allow him to reintroduce himself!
Forty-seven-year-old rapper Shawn Corey Carter, Hova, Hov (H to the O-V), Jigga, Mr. Beyoncé, would now like you to stop calling him Jay Z, effective immediately. Well, sort of.
Hours after news broke that the music mogul and now proud father of three (woo hoo, twin babies!) would release his new album 4:44 on June 30—it’s exclusive to Tidal, so go figure out how to get another free trial—the star is reportedly altering his moniker.
According to Pitchfork, Jay took a deep dive into the English language and chose to bring back a grammatical tool we all embarrassingly enough often use incorrectly: the hyphen. Yes, Jay Z will now fully embrace the hyphen again—but there’s a catch. This time, his name will be written in all caps. So, JAY-Z.
WOAH.
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So why the change? Did Beyoncé have something to do with this? Has Blue Ivy’s time in grammar school reignited a passion for punctuation?! Probably not.
And while the formatting of his name for 4:44 is styled “JAY: Z” in the teaser video, a Roc Nation representative has confirmed that indeed, the rapper is now going by JAY-Z.
This shouldn’t come as a shock, though. In 2013, Jay-Z made headlines when the Internet realized that he dropped the hyphen from his name for Magna Carta Holy Grail. However, others noticed the hyphen’s been actually missing since the 2011 release of Watch the Throne, his joint album with Kanye West.
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Regardless of the reason for the original switch, one thing’s for sure: Jay is back.