Smokey Robinson speaks to Chris Wallace (photo credit: CNN/HBO Max)
Smokey Robinson has said that he’d rather be called “Black American” instead of “African American.”
On the latest episode of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, the Motown singing legend sat down with Wallace to discuss his new album Gasms, as well as his thoughts on other aspects of his life.
Robinson told Wallace he doesn’t like being called an African American, saying that Black American better describes how he and his family lineage have fought and died for the country.
“I think that when they call Black people who were born and raised for generations in this country, if you accpet the handle of African American that says you don’t accept being an American American,” he said. “You don’t accept being born in Chicago or New York or Detroit or wherever you were born. For generations, your family has been here, you know, built this country too, sweat and tears and all that, fought in every war. Okay. So this is my country here. So I don’t want to be called African American. I’m an American American. My people died and done everything for this country.”
He also said regarding his new album’s title that he was being purposefully salacious.
“Yes, I was trying to be very edgy if I could. But I called it Gasms because one day I was at the piano and I was just I was gonna I was gonna write some songs. And the first one that came the first thing that came to my mind was about gasms because it’s so it’s such a controversial word. And first of all, you know, and most people when they hear ‘gasms,’ you know, they’re gonna think they’re going to think orgasm…So, before I really started actually writing the song, I looked at the word and I saw that ‘gasms’ is all good feelings. So that’s why.”
Watch the clips below.
Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? streams Friday mornings on HBO Max and airs Friday nights at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT on CNN.