'When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.'Rapper Kanye West’s interview on TMZ caused a furore on social media, with many accusing him of advocating for a ‘white freedom, a freedom without consequence’. We spoke about how vulnerability can birth lies and the difference between freedom, liberty and license with philosopher Lewis Gordon, one of the most prominent thinkers in black existentialism and post-colonial phenomenology.

—Paula Erizanu 

What were your first thoughts when you read about Kanye West’s interview on TMZ?

I wasn’t surprised. But my response was a little different from other people, mainly because I knew his mother. From the moment his mother died — I saw her a few months before she went to LA, I was wondering how he’ll be dealing with the trauma. She was a presence. She was a professor of English. When I met her she had dreadlocks, like me. Then when she went to Los Angeles to be Kanye’s manager she straightened her hair, had all of these plastic surgeries done to her. I can imagine the grief he’s feeling because he too had liposuction, the procedure that killed her. You go to this narrow, narcissistic, shallow world of Los Angeles, the 'me-me-me' stuff and it kills your mother. I can imagine the grief and guilt that occasions. And there really has been a different Kanye since then.