Rapper Kanye West has described slavery as a choice, praised Donald Trump for doing “the impossible” by becoming U.S. president, and attributed his 2016 mental breakdown to opioid addiction.
The “Jesus Walks” singer also gave the first details of his November 2016 admission to a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital after a series of curtailed concerts and political rants.
“I was drugged out,” he said in the TMZ interview. “Two days before I was taken to the hospital I was on opioids. I was addicted to opioids.”
He said he was given painkillers after undergoing previously unreported liposuction surgery, adding, “I got liposuction, because I didn’t want y’all to call me fat.”
In separate video released on Tuesday to match his new single “Ye vs. the People,” West discussed the support he voiced for Trump last week, which caused controversy among many of his fans.
Asked what he admired about Trump, West told fellow rapper T.I., “the ability to do what no one said you can do, to do the impossible.”
In the single, West raps lines like “Make America Great Again had a negative perception/I took it, wore it, rocked it, gave it a new direction.” Meanwhile, West is under fire for his comment and below are some of the extract;
Tanisha Ford, associate professor of Africana studies and history at University of Delaware, joined CBSN on Tuesday to discuss the impact of his remarks.
“Those comments show how completely out of touch Kanye is at this moment in time, and I think they would have his mother Donda West, a former college professor, enraged,” Ford said.
“It’s a far-cry from the Kanye West we knew who made the song ‘Crack Music,’ which made a link between slavery, the prison industrial complex and the rise of crack cocaine used in the black community.”
West, a 21-time grammy award winner, also drew immediate criticism online with writers and political commentators calling his comments on slavery trite and dangerous.
I don’t have the energy for nonsense but Kanye saying slavery was a choice reiterates my previous statements about how dangerous his trite, shallow ramblings are. He is not a free thinker. He is a free moron who doesn’t read. Do not @ me.
— roxane gay (@rgay) May 1, 2018
Kanye is a dangerous caricature of an “free thinking” black person in America. Frankly, I am disgusted and I’m over it. Also (I can’t believe I have to say this): Slavery was far from a choice.
— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) May 1, 2018
me in 2005: im so proud of Kanye for telling the truth abt george bush not caring about black people. it needed to be said.
me in 2018: im so proud of the black tmz dude for telling the truth abt kanye not caring about black people. it needed to be said.
— Tracy Boomeisha-Ann Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) May 1, 2018.
Kanye’s rhetoric continues to fuel the racist right-wing folks who believe that black people are responsible for their oppression.
— deray (@deray) May 1, 2018.
West, previously shared images of himself wearing one of Mr. Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats.
The photos drew attention from fans and critics alike, including praise from Mr. Trump, who said he loved the support.
West explained Tuesday that he felt a freedom in sharing the photos.
“It was really just my subconscious. It was a feeling I had, you know. Like, people — we’re taught how to think. We’re taught how to feel. We don’t know how to think for ourselves.
We don’t know how to feel for ourselves,” he told TMZ.
“People say ‘feel free,’ but they don’t really want us to feel free. I felt a freedom, first of all, in doing something that everybody tells you not to do.” (NAN)
