He’s wasn’t an angel, absolutely.
But a positive thing he used to do is write songs for other artists, many of which were hits for them.

I think he was consumed with being creative and he knew he was good at it. That can definitely lead to being an ass.

But the reason its disrespectful to him is because he changed his name to a symbol in protest of how the records labels were taking his work. It’s an issue artists still deal with today. Taylor Swift is a good high profile example. She had to re record her earlier albums just so she could own her own songs.

The whole Artist Formally Known As thing is easy to see as a joke but it was very much in response to real issues artists on all levels deal with.