During a lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, rapper Kanye West compared the press criticism he gets to slavery.
"They don't want you to be you," mirror.co.uk quoted West as saying while referring to the criticism his work has courted from disc jockeys and reviewers.
"If a slave got too strong, and he was talking too loud, they'd say, 'we're gonna put this slave in front of a crowd and whip his a** until 'what now?'"
West, who is engaged to Kim Kardashian, launched his debut album "College Dropout" in 2004.
Kim joined the talk in the iconic learning centre, and she even posted a picture on Twitter with the caption: "My baby speaking at the Harvard Graduate School of Design."