Kanye West calls for end to gay bashing

NEW YORK (AP)  Kanye West says "gay" has become an antonym to hip-hop — and that it needs to be stopped. During an interview for an MTV special, the 27-year-old rapper launched into a discussion about hip-hop and homosexuality while talking about Hey Mama, a song on his upcoming album, Late Registration.

West says that when he was young, people would call him a "mama's boy."

"And what happened was, it made me kind of homophobic, 'cause it's like I would go back and question myself," West says on the show, All Eyes on Kanye West, set to air Thursday night (10:30 p.m. ET).

West says he changed his ways, though, when he learned one of his cousins was gay.

"It was kind of like a turning point when I was like, 'Yo, this is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays.'"

West says hip-hop was always about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people." He adds that in slang, gay is "the opposite, the exact opposite word of hip-hop."

Kanye's message: "Not just hip-hop, but America just discriminates. And I wanna just, to come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, 'Yo, stop it.'"

West, whose debut disc The College Dropout won a Grammy for best rap album, will see his second record in stores on Aug. 30.

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