Rapper Kanye West, who has been dominating headlines with his controversial tweets in support of President Donald Trump, has landed in fresh controversy by suggesting that 400 years of slavery was "a choice".
West was invited by TMZ to talk about his recent tweets, free thought and Trump when he made the controversial comments, which have received massive backlash.
"When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice. You was there for 400 years and it's all of y'all. It's like we're mentally in prison. I like the word prison because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks.
"Slavery is to blacks as the Holocaust is to Jews. Prison is something that unites as one race, blacks and whites, that we're the human race," said West.
In the footage released by TMZ, West is then shown addressing the newsroom: "Do you feel that I'm being free and I'm thinking free?"
TMZ reporter Van Lathan, visibly angry, confronted the rapper, saying, "I actually don't think you're thinking anything. I think what you're doing right now is actually the absence of thought."
Rapper Will.i.am told Good Morning Britain that West's comments were "ignorant" and "broke my heart ... when you're a slaved, you're owned... that's not choice, that's by force."
Civil rights activist Deray McKesson said West "continues to fuel the racist right-wing folks who believe that black people are responsible for their oppression."
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay tweeted: "I've had it with @KanyeWest + @RKelly using the imagery of lynching as rebuttals re: their dastardly behaviour. Evoking racial terrorism and murder for personal gain/blame is stratospheric in is audacity and ignorance. This is what lynching looked like. How dare they?"