In keeping with the New Kanye we’re seeing of late, the artist dropped in to the TMZ offices in L.A. to boldly declare that “slavery was a choice”.
He popped over for an episode of TMZ Live with founder Harvey Levin, alongside conservative commentator Candace Owens, revealing that he became addicted to opioids after undergoing liposuction in 2016.
But then, in line with his current schtick of “free thinking” without any kind of learning involved, he went on to wonder it took so dang long for slaves to not be slaves any more.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years—for 400 years?! That sounds like a choice. Like, you was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all? It’s like we’re mentally in prison.”
He also claimed that the hip-hop community absolutely loved Donald Trump before the 2016 election.
“I just love Trump. That’s my boy. You know, so many rappers—you look at a video of Snoop Dogg lovin’ Trump, but then he get in the office and now they don’t love him. Trump is one of rap’s favourite people.”
It was shortly after that a TMZ reporter, Van Lathan, jumped in to express his disappointment and “unbelievable” hurt at Kanye’s comments on slavery. He got right in there and told Kanye, to his face, that he wasn’t actually thinking about his words at all.
“I actually don’t think you’re thinking anything. I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought. And the reason why I feel like that is because, Kanye, you’re entitled to your opinion. You’re entitled to believe whatever you want. But there is fact, and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything that you just said. And while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalisation that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said, for our people, was a choice. Frankly, I’m disappointed, I’m appalled, and brother, I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that’s not real.”
https://twitter.com/Chloe_Hilliard/status/991423641278668800
People are heaping praise on Lathan for standing up to celebrity, and expressing the hurt that his fans are feeling right now.
https://twitter.com/Matsamon/status/991413549015621633
There is fact & real world, real life consequence behind everything you just said…the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalization…from the 400 years of slavery that u said for our people was a choice.@VanLathan
— Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) May 1, 2018
Charlemagne should just go ahead and delete his little 2 hour conversation with Ye. Van Lathan did the job in 60 seconds.
NEXT.
— Lex✨ (@heyylexilex) May 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/NifMuhammad/status/991423450660130817
We were about to write that “Kanye hasn’t tweeted about this video and the response”, but literally while typing that sentence, he did. He’s clarifying his slavery statements, and we’ll keep updating his latest tweets here.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/991459400018624512
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/991459902718492682
