Wiz Khalifa Discovers Fifth Nice-Grandfather Was Enslaved

Wiz Khalifa bought hit with some heavy household historical past when PBS cameras rolled for Discovering Your Roots.

The Pittsburgh rapper sat down with host Henry Louis Gates Jr. and realized that his fifth great-grandfather, Howard Williamson, lived as an enslaved particular person in Alabama again in 1870. Gates dropped the information throughout the January 13 episode, explaining how Williamson lived proper subsequent door to the white household that owned him.

“I feel I’m programmed to really feel just a little bit p#####,” Wiz stated about Thomas J. Williamson, the person who enslaved his ancestor. “However simply him proudly owning my household simply sounds loopy. That sounds wild. I really feel some sort of method about that.”

Gates confirmed Wiz paperwork that basically drove the purpose dwelling. Thomas J. Williamson stored what historians name a “slave schedule” – principally an inventory of human beings handled like property. The data listed enslaved individuals by their pores and skin coloration, gender and age as an alternative of utilizing their precise names.

“It’s loopy to see him as a anonymous particular person on a grid,” the “Khaotic” artist stated. “And to know the way invaluable that property is as a result of it’s a life and it’s not truly property, it’s an individual. No identify, only a coloration and an age and what intercourse you’re.”

The 38-year-old rapper known as the entire expertise a “actuality examine.”

However Howard Williamson’s story didn’t finish with slavery. After gaining freedom, he labored as a tenant farmer and made some strikes that impressed his well-known descendant. Williamson registered to vote throughout Reconstruction, although Black voters confronted critical threats and violence after the Civil Struggle.

That took actual braveness again then. The “Black and Yellow” hitmaker bought emotional as he talked about feeling linked to ancestors he by no means knew existed.

“Even I really feel all of them round me. I simply don’t know who they’re. So now I’m capable of say their identify. In order that simply makes it even higher,” he defined.

Gates additionally revealed one other piece of Wiz’s household puzzle throughout the episode. The rapper’s grandfather, Willie Wimbush Jr., made the journey from the South to Pittsburgh round 1955 as a part of the Nice Migration.

Tens of millions of Black households moved north between 1910 and 1970, looking for higher alternatives and escaping Jim Crow legal guidelines. Wimbush settled his household in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the town’s traditionally Black neighborhood.

That call formed Wiz’s complete life path, since he grew up within the Metal Metropolis and constructed his profession there.

“It’s actually good to study it,” Wiz stated about discovering his grandfather’s migration story. “Simply to know, simply to really feel Papa Bush’s ambition by way of his story. That’s what I may really feel.”

The episode, titled “Nice Migrations,” additionally featured actress Sanaa Lathan exploring her family historical past.

Discovering Your Roots has been operating for 12 seasons, serving to celebrities hint their ancestry utilizing DNA testing and historic data. This season’s visitor checklist consists of heavy hitters like Lizzo, Spike Lee, Purple Scorching Chili Peppers bassist Flea, and basketball star Chris Paul.

The present airs Tuesdays at 8 P.M. on PBS and streams on PBS.org and the PBS app.