ROBESOИ

Ever since I was a young singer, I’ve been compared to Paul Robeson. I was asked constantly if I sang his trademark song ‘Ol Man River’ and was told my voice reminded people of his. To be honest, I didn’t know much about him at the time and became annoyed that people kept asking me to sing what I considered a minstrel song. Since then, I’ve learned much more about his life and found that I indeed had a connection to him; But the connection revealed itself not through superficial comparisons of our race, singing voices, and socially engaged work, but through his most vulnerable human moment: Many don’t know that while in political exile in Moscow, he was poisoned with LSD by the CIA, and attempted suicide in a hotel bathroom. This moment showed me he wasn’t a distant mythic figure; but instead, a faceted human facing and surviving life’s greatest difficulties. This vulnerable moment allowed me to move past seeing him simply as an idol to understanding him as an ancestor.