Kanye West is trying to make amends for comments about slavery that found him at the center of controversy earlier this summer.
“I don’t know if I properly apologized for how that slave comment made people feel,” West told Chicago’s WGCI-FM in a interview on Wednesday. “So I want to take this moment right now to say … I’m sorry for people who felt let down by that moment.”
West stirred up controversy in May after calling slavery “a choice” in a baffling interview with TMZ.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice,” West said at the time. “You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.”
One TMZ staffer, Van Lathan, challenged West’s statements at the time, telling him, “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.”
On the program, West said the incident “showed me how much black people love me and how much black people count on me and depend on me and I appreciate that.”
When one host, who goes by Kendra G, told West that “God has blessed you with this ability that when you speak, change can happen,” West was visibly moved. He later said the criticism he faces often leaves him feeling like his “voice is not meaningful.”
In the wide-ranging interview, West choked up when talking about his support system and promised “a new Ye.”
WGCI Morning Show’s interview with West will be aired in two parts, with the first released Wednesday.
