There has been a long and inconvenient history of music artists changing their names, but spelling variations can be just as vexing. 2Pac or Tupac? Can you drop the asterisk from NSYNC/*NSYNC? Beyoncé, or just plain Beyonce?
Which is why has opted for a newfound sense of simplicity. As of Thursday night, the rapper’s name will no longer carry the hyphen and should be stylized just as “Jay Z”.
Billboard editor Joe Levy let fans know of the name change by : “Breaking: Jay Z has dropped the hyphen from his name, according to his label. I am not kidding. (Wish I was.) Copy editors: take note.”
The reflects the change as well. Almost every post has the name of the page tagged in it, so “Jay Z” appears consistently even in past postings.
Since Jay Z no longer has to worry about having a hyphen, perhaps he should ponder his other 99 problems; a has recently gone viral, depicting the mundane problems she imagines the rapper must have been talking about.
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Kelsey Fowler is currently studying nothing music-related at Ithaca College. Help keep her in the loop on .
