Kanye West continued his “dragon energy” crusade on TMZ, explaining the impetus for his Twitter comments and getting slammed into the ground by TMZ staffer Van Lathan, who felt offended by his words.

West paid a visit to the TMZ newsroom to explain how he came to tweet his political thoughts and views.

“It was really just my subconscious. It was just a feeling I had,” he said. “We don’t know how to think for ourselves… People say ‘feel free’ but they don’t really want us to feel free.”

“I just love Trump, that’s my boy,” he added. “Trump is one of rap’s favorite people.”

Kanye went on to discuss slavery and made some very distasteful comments about it.

“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … that sounds like a choice,” he said. “Like, you was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all?”

He later asked the newsroom: “Do you feel that I’m being free and I’m thinking free?”

That’s when Lathan took him to task.

“I actually don’t think you’re thinking anything,” he said. “I think what you’re doing right now is actually the absence of thought.”

“Kanye, you’re entitled to your opinion, you’re entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real life consequence behind everything that you just said,” Lathan continued. “While you are making music and being an artist, and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives.”

“We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from 400 years of slavery that you said, for our people, was a choice,” he added. “Frankly, I’m disappointed, I’m appalled, and brother, I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that’s not real.”

Watch above, via TMZ.

[image via screengrab]

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]