Kanye West Said 400 Years Of Slavery Was A Choice?! (TMZ)

Originally published on May 7, 2018
Kanye West was on Tuesday's "TMZ Live." By now you've seen the clips of Kanye saying he feels 400 years of slavery was a choice made by African-Americans and admitting he's been hooked on opioids after undergoing liposuction. From his thoughts on wearing the Make America Great Again hat to how he feels about Daz Dillinger calling for the Crips to attack him. Conservative commentator Candice Owens was there as well.Show more

Kanye Omari West (/ˈkɑːnjeɪ/; born June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, entrepreneur and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West briefly attended art school before becoming known as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the early 2000s, producing and co-producing hit singles for artists such as Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. Intent on pursuing a solo career as a rapper, West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004 to widespread critical and commercial success, and founded the record label GOOD Music. He went on to pursue a variety of styles on subsequent albums Late Registration (2005), Graduation (2007), and 808s & Heartbreak (2008). In 2010, he released his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to rave reviews from critics, and the following year he released the collaborative album Watch the Throne with Jay-Z. West released his abrasive sixth album, Yeezus, to further critical praise in 2013. His seventh 'unfinished playlist' album, The Life of Pablo, was released in 2016.

West's outspoken views and life outside of music have received significant mainstream attention. He has been a frequent source of controversy for his conduct at award shows, on social media, and in other public settings, as well as his comments on the music and fashion industries, U.S. politics, and race. As a fashion designer, he has collaborated with Nike, Louis Vuitton, and A.P.C. on both clothing and footwear, and have most prominently resulted in the YEEZY collaboration with Adidas beginning in 2013. He is the founder and head of the creative content company DONDA.

West is among the most acclaimed musicians of the 21st century, and has sold more than 100 million digital downloads and 21 million albums worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all time and the most Grammy-awarded artist of his generation. Three of his albums have been included and ranked on Rolling Stone's 2012 update of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015

West is among the most critically acclaimed artists of the twenty-first century, receiving praise from music critics, fans, fellow musicians, artists, and wider cultural figures for his work. AllMusic editor Jason Birchmeier writes of his impact, "As his career progressed throughout the early 21st century, West shattered certain stereotypes about rappers, becoming a superstar on his own terms without adapting his appearance, his rhetoric, or his music to fit any one musical mold." Jon Caramanica of The New York Times said that West has been "a frequent lightning rod for controversy, a bombastic figure who can count rankling two presidents among his achievements." Village Voice Media senior editor Ben Westhoff dubbed him the greatest hip hop artist of all time, writing that "he's made the best albums and changed the game the most, and his music is the most likely to endure," while Complex called him the 21st century's "most important artist of any art form, of any genre." In 2016, The Guardian compared West to David Bowie within the "modern mainstream", arguing that "there is nobody else who can sell as many records as West does [...] while remaining so resolutely experimental and capable of stirring things up culturally and politically."

Rolling Stone credited West with transforming hip hop's mainstream, "establishing a style of introspective yet glossy rap ", and called him "as interesting and complicated a pop star as the 2000s produced—a rapper who mastered, upped and moved beyond the hip-hop game, a producer who created a signature sound and then abandoned it to his imitators, a flashy, free-spending sybarite with insightful things to say about college, culture and economics, an egomaniac with more than enough artistic firepower to back it up." West's middle-class background, flamboyant fashion sense and outspokenness have set him apart from other rappers.