10 influential American celebrities who have traced their African roots

John Legend
A DNA test taken in 2012 revealed that American singer and songwriter, John Legend, is 64% African with roots tied to Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. The Academy Award winner, born and raised in Springfield, Ohio also shares ancestry with Europe (32%) and Native America (4%).

“I never really accounted for or thought about the other parts of my mix because I just thought, ‘Well, I’m black, and that’s what I am,’” he told iHeart Radio. “We know what light skinned and dark skinned and brown skinned or whatever, and we talk about that in the community of black folks. But at the end of the day, we think of ourselves as Black most of the time, unless you have a parent who’s of another race and then it kind of complicates it more. That’s what I always thought of myself as, and then I got the details on it when I took the test.”