“Naija man finally?” Drake on being 30% Nigerian

After channeling out our inner champagne Papi, the ‘One Dance’ singer, rapper and songwriter with such a huge influence in the contemporary popular music is optimistic about the fact that he might be in fact a Nigerian man. This is after the ancestry report done to trace the family history did reveal that the rap star was 30% Nigerian.

Off a post Drake shared on his Instagram story, he revealed his father Dennis Graham’s ancestry results. The results generated from ancestry.com showed that Drake’s dad was estimated to be at least 30% Nigerian, with some western Bantu people’s heritage at 28 percent, Cameron and Congo, Ivory Coast and Ghana landing a solid 11 percent. There were various other percentages below 10% such as in England, Mali, and Scotland. “this is my dad’s results,” drake captioned the screenshot on his Instagram stories. Adding, “Does this mean I’m a Naija man finally?”

Nigerians reacting to Drake’s news.

While drake celebrates and takes in this news bit by bit, His fans in Nigeria seem to be more emotionally stirred and excited about this and love it for him, with many fans talking about how they always knew he was a child of their land from his music, something deep ran down the ancestral roots to Drizzy. Many of his fans off of twitter have even suggested that he drops a fire afrobeat album now that he knows about his African roots. In fact, Basito an international music journalist wrote saying, “Drake went to check his DNA to know if he had Nigerian roots so that when he drops an afrobeats album, nobody would question him”

In a few comments off of social media following drake’s announcement;

@abigail_dinsey: “yesooo from Ibadan. I know some of his family members”

@iam_ojay_igwe: “Drake Nwanne m, no wonder I keep seeing him in my dream Chai my brother come back home, we don share land finish but I fit cut my own for you. Nwoke oma.”

@omojiatcovenant: “I too dey suspect cause the guy too like betting, Nigerians and betting ehnn.” Another fan mentioned on social media recalling the recently concluded fight where drake cashed out over N1.2b from a bet on Israel Adesanya when he defeated Pereira.

Lately we have many African American actors and actresses, celebrities, TV personalities, athletes and many more influential black people looking out for and trying to trace their ancestral roots and heritage. Very vivid examples of these are for example former actress and current Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle who carried out her genetic roots tracing procedures revealing that she was 43% Nigerian and she did share this over her “archetypes” podcast showing desire to learn more about her roots. “While my mixed heritage may have created a gray area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.” She said in interview in September, 2019 after marrying the Duke of Sussex. A huge number of people have traced their roots to Nigeria and some stars such as Lil Wayne at 53%, renowned televangelist Bishop TD Jakes also from the Igbo tribe of Nigeria.

It’s a fascinating and exciting process finding out ones ancestral family tree and tracing that history mostly for the highly mixed race people. However with resources such as ancestry.com, this process is quickened. Some of the tools one could use to start doing their family history are already digitized and advanced DNA tests have even simplified that work more and now people can trace their roots to armies, slave plantations and owners, even African regions of origin. These lately are done through ancestry DNA, U.S. Census Records, Slave Schedules, freedman’s Bank Records, Military records, African American newspapers, local emancipation records and interviews with former slaves.