Kanye West has threatened a Melbourne burger shop with legal action. Photo / Getty Images

Kanye West has threated an Australian burger shop with legal action.

The US rapper has threatened a burger shop called College Dropout with legal action because it references his material without permission.

The burger shop – which is named after the rapper's debut album, has been followed by West on Instagram for months and includes multiple tributes to the star with a mural at the shop entrance, and burgers cleverly named after his songs like "Zingers in Paris", the "Gold Digger" and "Heartless".

Speaking to NCA NewsWire, the owner of the Melbourne-based store, Mark Elkhouri, has revealed he only ever intended to honour West with the tributes in the store as he said the artist effectively "saved his life".

"I was so committed to wanting to push this narrative out there of how important Kanye West is to society," Elkhouri said before referencing the rapper's mental health battle and constant discussion about the topic.

"We need that more than ever with issues in mental health, and Kanye talking about his own mental health out there.

"I myself suffered from depression years ago, so there are ways in saying, well, Kanye actually saved my life." The burger shop owner said he hopes people can revisit the rapper's music and find some inspiration in it.

Elkhouri continued on to say he will not hold a grudge against the famous rapper despite having to rethink his business, "I'm just going to have to say this is what it is, and move on, move forward," he said.

He has since placed a "temporary" logo sticker over top of the original teddy bear logo and posted a picture of it on Instagram with the caption: "Ye! Call me bruh!"

The rebrand of College Dropout has been a blessing in some ways Elkhouri said as it gives the store a chance to appeal to a wider audience.

"The brand has shifted in some ways to celebrate these specific figures now. Not everyone is a Kanye West fan, so I do honestly think this may be a blessing in disguise where I can probably appeal to a wider audience."

Elkhouri said he will rename some of the burgers after other famous dropouts like Quentin Tarantino, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

"For the guys that are involved in tech, there's Bill Gates, Steve Jobs.

"There's more of a female presence now, Marilyn Monroe, guys that are involved in film, there's a burger named after Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt.

"It's forced to extend out the idea of being creative."