IN THE STREETS & ON THE WEB

Nas Finds Out His Third Great Grandmother Was Pocahontas

When rapper Nas signed on for Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ latest “Finding Your Roots” series, he didn’t expect to end up looking at the 1859 bill of sale that transferred ownership of his third great-grandmother Pocahontas to a Southern slaveholder.

“First I was enraged when I looked at it,” he told TV writers here. Then he added, half-joking, “I was like, that guy that owned property owes me some cash. My people made him really wealthy, so maybe I should find his family and talk.”

But seriously, said Nas, the first rapper in the PBS series that resumes Sept. 23, “I thought I would never know anything about my family past my grandparents, and I was willing to just accept that because I had no way of finding out.

“So when I saw the bill of sale, I had to stop and deal with that for a moment. This is a sale of a human being. This was business here in this country.”

Gates later said that when he finds a case where a white and black person may have the same white ancestor — often a slaveholder — the only way to confirm that suspicion is to have both descendants take a DNA test.

“We have had white people say no way,” Gates said, letting the obvious explanation go unspoken before deadpanning, “They’re afraid Nas is going to sue them.”

Nas said he hasn't incorporated any of this new information into his music yet, but that “it will probably happen on its own. . . . I cannot disappoint these ancestors now. I have to represent.”

Still, that didn’t stop him from a little side speculation about his third great grandmother.

“Just finding out her name was Pocahontas, it made me wonder what she looked like,” he said. “She had to be hot.”