Kanye West Attempts To Clarify Harriet Tubman Comments
Kanye West addressed his controversial comments about Harriet Tubman during his wide-ranging conversation with Nick Cannon.
The Wild N’ Out star shared the second part of his extensive podcast interview with the Chicago rapper and entrepreneur on Monday (September 8). During the nearly hour-long session, West went on a spiel about the spate of criticism he’s faced as of late before he touched on his controversial take on the legendary abolitionist.
In July, during his first presidential rally in South Carolina, he came under fire after he claimed that “Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slaves. She just had the slaves go work for other white people.”
“The whole thing about the Harriet Tubman thing is we don’t need to tear our statues down to build new ones, because we don't [have] enough statues. But the only icon is Jesus,” West said around the around the 11-minute mark.
Several minutes later into the interview, West brought up the subject of Tubman again.
“With me, I’m a freedom fighter. So, my comment to Harriet Tubman or of her, was my, we got to be reminded,” he begins before Cannon cut him off to elaborate that the rapper's comments were a reminder of how “white people did us dirty.”
“Yeah or how we were slaves,” West continued. “Or even go to African American museum. They don’t start off with the African drums. It starts off with the slave boats. It could be more motivational. But they don’t want us to get-”
Cannon interjected again to agree with Ye’s sentiments that Black culture “is much more than slavery.”
“If we have Black History Month, we need to have Black Future Month,” West said.
“That’s a skill set,” the rapper continued. “Don’t give you nothing and if you get just a little sip of water then you look like a horse with a sugar cube. That’s how they be having us. That’s the whole thing.”
Like in the previous video, the two men candidy discussed a variety of topics relating to politics, voting, religion, and cancel culture and more. Besides Tubman, West even shared his thoughts on some other headline-grabbing moments, such as his recent meet-up with Jared Kushner.
“Everybody wants to ask me questions. This is my expedition I’m driving. I ain’t gotta tell you. I don’t care if we got ice cream. I can meet with whoever I want to. You know why? Because I’m free,” he said. “So many Black people, so many people are not free.”
Though West didn’t feel the need to “justify” any of his actions, he clarified that he met with Kushner at his Wyoming ranch to discuss economic changes that would empower the Black community.
Check out the rest of Nick Cannon and Kanye West’s 52-minute conversation, below.
