Kanye West has revealed he scrapped another album after appearing on TMZ last month.
West appeared in a TMZ Live chat on May 1, revealing that he was addicted to opioids after getting liposuction and making comments about slavery.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years, for 400 years?! That sounds like a choice,” he argued. “We’re mentally imprisoned.”
A TMZ team member spoke out about West’s comments during the interview, causing the chat to go viral.
Now, West has given his first interview since the release of his latest album ‘Ye‘. During his outdoor album listening party in Wyoming, West chatted to radio personality Big Boy.
“I completely re-did the album after TMZ. We just sat there and really honed in on the words because now it’s all headlines, it’s like every bar can be used… you know, there’s even bars we had about that… I took a bar off the album.,” West revealed. “It was just too sensitive. It was about that topic. And I just let go. ‘I’m gonna just chill right now, let’s just keep making some music.’
“You know, I feel like, as a son, and as a family member of the world … that’s the reason why the world won’t let me go because I’m just a family member. They might disagree with me, but I’m family. I’ve been here for 15 years, 18 years, and you know, I feel like the best thing I could do is sit there, and go in that studio, and keep chopping that thing that only I know how to do and only me and my crew know how to do.” You can see the full interview below.
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When talking of the new album, Big Boi said that ‘it feels a lot more personal’ and that the songs on the album ‘feels like there’s a moment in time that [West] put into a capsule.’ “Is that something you felt you was trying to do or did that just manifest by itself?” asked Big Boi.
“I think it came from me just continually going against mass opinion, and I was able to find my voice — my voice — because, as you know, I started off with my voice. And this is what happens with a lot of artists: They start off with their voice and then they start having to do so many records for so many different people .. and is this person going to be happy and is that person going to be happy,” West replied.
“I just had to stand in front of that board every morning and ask myself, ‘Do these songs truly make me happy? Are these songs I want to play back? Does the song make me cry? Does the song take me somewhere? I just think that when you start reaching your late 30s, there’s this whole movement like, ‘Nah, when you’re in your 30s, we don’t want to hear no music from you anymore.’ And I just got a place where it’s just art. Period.”
West also explained that he’d been diagnosed with “a mental condition” at 39 years old. “Think about people that have mental issues that are not Kanye West, that can’t go and make that, and make it feel like it’s all good. Think about someone who does exactly what I did at TMZ and they just do that at work, right?” he said.
“But then Tuesday morning, they come in, and they lost their job… and they can’t go back and make that. That’s why god put that on me at age 40. I had never been diagnosed until… like… 39 years old. I think everybody’s got something. I think everybody got something, but like I said, on the album, I said, that it’s not a disability, that it’s a superpower.”