Transcript: TMZ And Kanye West Slavery Was A Choice Interview
MTV: Based on what you've just said here, it sounds to me you got precisely the reaction you wanted by wearing that hat.
Kanye West: I didn't want a reaction.
MTV: You wanted a reaction.
Kanye West: No.
MTV: You knew there was gonna be a reaction.
Kanye West: I knew there was gonna be a reaction, but I'm just living my life day by day doing what I feel and what the spirit calls upon me to do.
MTV: But it also opens up this dialogue that you're not apologizing, because everybody else, when they make a statement like that, they end up apologizing because they're so worried about what people say on social media.
Kanye West: Well, you know why when I went to visit him the first time?
MTV: Right after the election.
Kanye West: Yeah, and I took the tweets down and everything?
MTV: Yeah.
Kanye West: Because I was drugged the fuck out, bro. I was drugged out. I was on opioids. Two days after I got off of opioids, and I was addicted to opioids, two days I got off of opioids, I'm in the hospital, right? I'm taking two, hey, everyone listen to this, please. Two days before I was in the hospital, I was on opioids. I was addicted to opioids. I had plastic surgery because I was trying to look good for y'all. I got liposuction. Because I didn't want y'all to call me fat like y'all called Rob at the wedding and made him fly home before me and Kim got married. I didn't want y'all to call me fat, so I got liposuction, right? And they gave me opioids, right? And I started taking two of them and then driving to work on the opioids, right? Then my boy, and I'd always ask my boy, uh... You know, to hand me if it's, you know, we on tour, give me some weed, blah, blah, blah. So he had to go give me the opioids. And there was talks amongst my camp like, yeah, he's popping pills, right? So when he handed this to me, he said, you know this is used to kill genius, right? So I didn't take it. Two days later, I'm in a hospital. I was taking two pills a day at that time. When I left the hospital, how many pills you think I was given?
MTV: Seven.
Kanye West: I went from taking two pills to taking seven. So the reason why I denounced, why I dropped those tweets and everything, because I was drugged the fuck out, bro. And I'm not drugged out. These pills that they want me to take three of a day, I take one a week maybe, two a week. Y'all had me scared of myself, of my vision. So I took some pills so I wouldn't go to hospital and prove everyone right. We are drugged out. We are following other people's opinions. We are controlled by the media. And today it all changes. You got Tupac and Lennon in that hallway. Today it all changes. We need to think how to think free. We need to be free thinkers, then we need to learn how to feel free. People say feel free, but we don't even know how to feel free or think free. Say what you feel, positive or negative. I just got off the phone with J. Cole. He said, how'd you feel when they said the Crips is gonna kill you? I said, man, that was the headline. But when they said they wanted to beat me up, I said, that's great. They're my brothers. They love me. They don't want nothing to happen to Ye. They just want to be some sensitive to me. I love Daz. I love the Crips. I love the Bloods. I love everyone.
Kanye West: How many people are feeling, how many people felt something that I said today? Raise a hand if you felt something that I said today. Do you feel that I'm feeling, do you feel that I'm being free and I'm thinking free?
MTV: Yes.
MTV: 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, 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 marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice. Every day we have to walk into that truth while you choose to say things that, to be honest with you, dawg, are nonsensical. You wanna think freely? That's fine. I'll combat your free thought with my free thought because mine is grounded in a reality that I have been given and a reality that I'm going to change, but I'm not gonna do it by pretending that the enemies are on the same team as me. And 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. That's the way I feel. Stand on all the coffee tables you wanna stand on, say whatever you wanna say, but don't throw a stone, then hide your hand like the rest of us are just gonna swallow it. Yay, be yay. I'm off it forever. Do you. But remember, the life that I live is as a real person. An actual person.
Kanye West: Now the thing is he said something, he said grounded in reality. This reality has been forced upon us. It is a choice. Just like when I said slavery is a choice. The reality, we can make our own reality. We can talk about history, but not too long. We need to talk about our now because we can fix and start loving each other now. When I say we have no enemies, we don't have enemies. Black people have a tendency to focus and march when a white person kills a black person or wears a hat. But when it's 700 kids being killed in Chicago, it's okay. It's okay for blacks to kill blacks. But if it's a white thing-
MTV: No, wait, wait, wait. I'm not saying that's okay.
Kanye West: But there's been more focus and more marches about whites killing Blacks than kids in Chicago killing each other.
MTV: That's a lie. There are Black people working.
Kanye West: There are no marches.
MTV: That's a lie.
Kanye West: 90% of black people being killed are killed by other blacks.
MTV: That's a fact.
Kanye West: That's a fact. Look it up.
MTV: That is a fact.
Kanye West: The black homicide rate is a fact. That is a fact. Black on black crime is a fact.
MTV: But there are black people.
Kanye West: Nobody wants to march when a black person has a black crime.
MTV: Now this is a problem. You're too far. You have to be closer to me. I'm in here right now. There are black people working every single day to combat.
Kanye West: Brother, don't scream because it will make us look.
MTV: Yeah.
Kanye West: Crazy.
MTV: I don't care how we look in front of this.
Kanye West: You talk as a boy.
MTV: No, when you scream.
Kanye West: This is what I'm saying. When you scream and you don't talk, it doesn't look.
MTV: Let me just say something. Let me just say something. Let me park this upon you. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about because these are two different versions of somebody else's truth. This is two different versions of somebody else's truth. So he gets up and he's talking slavery, right? Okay, I'm not enslaved.
Kanye West: I don't mean to insult his reality.
MTV: No, Kanye, come on over.
Kanye West: I just wanted to give him a hug.
MTV: No.
Kanye West: I think he might want to fight me, but I want to give him a hug.
MTV: Kanye, let's finish this conversation.
Kanye West: I love you and I want to give you a hug. I feel like you want to fight me right now, but I love you.
MTV: I don't fight with my fist, man. I've been through that.
Kanye West: So if I come over there, you're not going to fight me?
MTV: No, I'm not going to hit Kanye West and TMZ.
MTV: Bro, you gotta be responsible, man.
Kanye West: I'm sorry I hurt you.
MTV: You gotta be responsible, dog.
Kanye West: I'm sorry I hurt you, bro.
MTV: Your voice is too big.
Kanye West: I'm sorry I hurt you, bro. I love you, bro. I'm sorry I hurt you with my words, bro. I love you, bro.
MTV: You gotta be responsible, man. You gotta be responsible, dog.
Kanye West: I didn't mean to say things that hurt you. I didn't mean to wear the hat out the blue and shock so many people and not give them a way out of the pain. I understand that that gave them pain, that made them see pain. But guess what? I went into the hospital. We're now in the hospital. TMZ is the hospital to fix the world. Obama was our opioids. It made us feel like everything was good.
MTV: That's not true, bro. That's not true.
MTV: Listen, first of all, calmly.
Kanye West: What's your name, though?
MTV: I'm Van.
Kanye West: And I'm sorry for disappointing you, Van.
MTV: Yeah, listen. Calmly. Yeah. What you said up there a second ago, the statistic about black on black violence is true. What they don't tell you is there are people dedicating their lives to working throughout the problems of black people. There are black people every day, boots on the ground. They are all over the place that are working towards this. Like every single day, people are trying to fix this problem. The narrative that black people don't care about black lives until a white person takes them - it's false. That is not true. But the problem is, the people that are doing this work in communities every day, guys all over the place, they don't get the type of reverence, they don't get the type of shine, they don't get the type of light spotted on them, the spotlight, should I say, that other people do. Those people are the ones that need to be empowered, the people that can help Chicago, that can help South Baton Rouge, that can help those places, that are working there every day. They doing it and they dedicating their lives to it. But they don't get big up by rappers, they don't get invited to things, they do it for nothing because they have to. So what I'm trying to say is while we have all of these conversations about stuff that gets covered on the news, who's gonna talk about what doesn't get covered on the news? Like to me, for me, for a lot of years, the dude that inspired me to be more than what I was in Baton Rouge, that was you. Ask everybody in this room for years, ask everybody in here how many times we've had a Kanye West story and I've stood there the only person to defend Kanye West because what you meant to me. And then after that, you slapped me in my fucking face by getting next to people who mean me harm. And who don't even care about the fact, about being honest about the fact that they mean me harm.
Kanye West: I think that we have to get next to everyone. We don't like Trump, we have to talk to them. We have to talk because Trump is a human being also and he's in a very powerful position and he's doing a lot of things to actually help business owners be able to go past all these fake laws and rules and, I mean, candidates can give you the facts better than that, but we need to speak to people. Einstein says the definite of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting a different result. So we keep on saying, I hate you, I hate you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. How are we gonna get a different result out of hate? Why don't we just try love? Why don't we just try love? Why can't it be okay for an influential rapper in the black community to go up to the president and talk to him about how we can make a change one by one by one? We have the resources for a peaceful world. I believe that Kim Jong-un didn't believe that Obama was crazy enough to come at him. You know, sometimes you need some crazy motherfuckers to change something. Steve Jobs is crazy, now we all on Steve Jobs' phones. They say Trump's crazy, they say I'm crazy, but I'm here to show love, and we're gonna make it through. I know I disappointed you today, brother, and I know I disappointed the black community when I wore the hat, and I'm sorry for disappointing you, but like I just told J. Cole on the phone right now, it's a bigger plan, and I'm just doing what the universe told me.
Event Date: May 1, 2018
