Central Cee has revealed that he’s changed his name after converting to Islam.
During a livestream with PlaqueBoyMax, the London rapper revealed that he had taken his Shahada.
“I just changed my name, init,” he said. “I took my Shahada, init.”
The Shahada is the Islamic declaration of faith and one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Cee went on to reveal that his new name was Akhil, after being born Oakley Neil Caesar-Su.
Cee grew up in Shepherd’s Bush in West London. The 27-year-old has struggled with his success after his early years.
“I think I’m level-headed, but recently I’ve been thinking maybe this is unhealthy,” he told The Guardian. “Maybe I’m really, really deluded. I’m about to buy a £3 million yard like it’s nothing. But, bro, do you know what man was doing even a couple years ago? I ask myself: ‘Why am I not overwhelmed like everybody else seems to be?’ I think it’s because I think I deserve it.”
He continued, “That’s only one side of my mind. Because at the same time, I have a lot of survivor’s guilt where I don’t feel like I deserve anything that I have. I don’t know how I do it. I think it’s a survival instinct: what am I going to do, start going head over heels and lose this all? I just treat it as work.”
Cee is already one of the most successful British rappers of all time. His debut album, Can’t Rush Greatness, released in January 2025, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and number nine on the Billboard 200 chart in the US.
Singles like ‘Doja’ and ‘Let Go’ have also been successes on both sides of the pond, as well as ‘Sprinter’ with Dave, ‘Band4Band’ with Lil Baby, and ‘Which One‘ with Drake.
