"Do you feel that I'm being free and I'm thinking free?" he asked.
Silence — until one TMZ staffer, Van Lathan, stood up from his desk.
"I actually don't think you're thinking anything. I think what you're doing right now is actually the absence of thought," Lathan told the star.
"Kanye, you're entitled to your opinion, but there is fact and there is real-life consequence to everything you just said. While you are making music and living the life you've earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives," Lathan continued.
"We have to deal with the marginalisation that has come from 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a CHOICE. 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."
Kanye approached Lathan to try to hug it out, but he wasn't having it.
"Bro, you've got to be responsible, man. Your voice is too big," he told West.
Watch the full interaction below:
West's sudden dismissal of slavery was a step too far for many already burned by his controversial social media antics of the past week:
West backtracked on his slavery statements in a series of tweets following his latest backlash:
Elsewhere in his TMZ interview, West revealed he became addicted to opioids after having liposuction.
"Two days before I was in the hospital I was on opioids," he said.
"I was addicted to opioids. I had plastic surgery because I was trying to look good for y'all. I got liposuction because I didn't want y'all to call me fat like y'all called Rob [Kardashian] at the wedding and made him fly home before me and Kim got married."
In another interview this week, West spoke about the incidents that he believes led to his 2016 mental breakdown.
West said the infamous "moment" he stormed the stage while Taylor Swift was accepting an MTV Award in 2009 led to radio stations ditching his music and affecting his career.
He also pointed to Kim Kardashian's robbery, the fashion world deriding him after a disastrous New York Fashion Week show, and the drudgery of being on tour, as major factors.
"Fear, stress, control, being controlled, manipulation like being a pawn in the chess piece of life. Stressing things that like create validation that I didn't need to worry about as much and just the concept of competition and being in competition with so many elements at one time," West said.
"On a race against time, your age, you're getting old. A race against popularity on the radio: [DJ] Khaled got this song, Drake got this song on the radio, it's playing to death but Saint Pablo ain't playing. I could take the whole interview talking about [this]."
He claimed that US radio stations stopped playing his songs after the Taylor Swift "moment".
"Ever since the Taylor Swift moment it has never been the same, the connection with radio. Like whatever powers that be, it was much harder after that," he said.
