Kanye West Implies Slavery Was 'a Choice'

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

Kanye West has taken his "free thought" ideologies off of Twitter, temporarily, and onto the small screen in a recent interview with TMZ Live.

TMZ shared some sneak peeks of West's more controversial comments, which included the rapper's defense of his support for Donald Trump and his apparent belief that slavery was "a choice."

"What happened last week with the Make America Great Again hat?" TMZ founder Harvey Levin asked, opening the dialogue. "What are you trying to do with the message you're sending?"

"It was really just my subconscious," West explained. "It's a feeling I had ... I felt a freedom in, first of all, just doing something that everybody tells you not to do."

West then justified his appreciation for Trump, stating that rappers historically have always been a fan of the real estate mogul (before his presidential run). "It was an 'in' thing to put Donald Trump in your rhymes," Levin's cohost, Charles Latibeaudiere, agreed.

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

West - who has a new album coming out soon, just btw - added that he is not solely a representative of the black community, but of "the whole world." West continued to offer his take on the slave trade: "When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice," he said in the video below. "You were here for 400 years, and it's all of y'all?! It's, like, we're mentally in prison."

In a separate clip, released by TMZ Tuesday, West admitted to dealing with an opioid addiction at the time of his mental breakdown. "I was drugged the f--k out, bro! I was drugged out," he said. "I was on opioids. Two days after I got off of opioids ... I'm in the hospital." (In November 2016, West was admitted into a Los Angeles hospital after he allegedly suffered a “nervous breakdown,” which was then described as being triggered by the anniversary of his mother Donda West’s death.) On TMZ, West explained he became addicted to painkillers after getting plastic surgery. "I was trying to look good for y'all," he said, addressing the newsroom. "I got liposuction, because I didn't want y'all to call me fat like y'all called Rob [Kardashian] at the wedding and made him fly home before me and Kim got married."

The 40-year-old father of three then continued to explain that doctors have asked him to take multiple prescribed drugs, but that he has been hesitant to follow their orders.

"These pills that they want me to take three of a day, I take one a week, maybe," he said. "Y'all have me scared of myself, of my vision."

On Tuesday, West also released a highly anticipated interview with famed New York radio host Charlamagne Tha God.

In the interview, released on wegotlove.com, West explained why he considers his hospitalization his "breakthrough."

"I just wanted to say like there was elements about going to the hospital and having a breakdown or a breakthrough that was fire," he said. "It was incredible, the feeling."

"Something inspired in the wrong context will come off as, I don't wanna say crazy because I also wanna change the stigma of crazy and I wanna change the stigma of mental health, period," he continued. "Best believe I'm gonna take the stigma off the word crazy. People will take something that's enlightened, put it in a different context, and then call it crazy to try to diminish the impact and the value of what I'm actually saying."

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