Paul Wall Claims to Not Have Known He Was White Until Classmates Informed Him
Although he’s well-accepted in the hip-hop community, Paul Wall is not Black.
To promote his new album, Once Upon a Grind, the Houston emcee was a guest on “The Breakfast Club” this week. Co-host Jess Hilarious asked him about an interview in which he recalled not knowing he was white as a child.
“I didn't know I was white ‘til white people told me I was white,” the “Grillz” rapper said around 17 minutes into the video below. "They was like, 'You white. Why you talk and act like that? You white. And I'm like, what do you mean?'”
Wall added that the questioning about his race “definitely happened in school,” being either in elementary or middle school. “But, I mean, all my friends were Black or Mexican or Asian,” he continued. “I lived in a very diverse neighborhood. There were white people there, but it was Mexican, Black, Vietnamese, Indian ... A lot of everything.”
He also said that he knew immigrant neighbors, like Nigerian ones. “So we got a great mixture of growing up in America, I guess,” he added.
Wall joked that he “cried in the car,” saying, “‘Mama, you didn’t tell me I was white!’” but recalled that his mother took a genealogy test, finding that she was three percent African.
"I know she can't say the N-word, that ain't enough for her to say the N-word," he jokingly added. “Not that my mama would ever want to say the N-word, by the way. She’d never say that in her life.”
While Wall “really wants to” take a genealogy test, his “conspiracy theorist” side has prevented him from doing so, as he’s unsure if his “data” will be used to track diseases that he’s most susceptible to.