I Hate My DNA Now

AncestryDNA and Spotify have teamed up to offer users a playlist based on their Ancestry results, and I’m sorry to report that the colonizer section of my playlist fucking sucks.

Before I go any further, let me say this: Yes, I gave a spit sample to Big DNA™. As a black American and descendent of slaves, I have no idea where my ancestors came from beyond the nebulous region that is West Africa. A lifetime of hearing classmates break down their ethnic backgrounds into eighths and fourths like a baking recipe has made me feel some kind of way, and my curiosity overrode any and all legitimate scientific grey areas and privacy concerns. Call me boo boo the fool when I discover my clone or find myself framed for a crime, but for now I have no regrets.

I do, however, regret some of the results of this playlist feature.

The first step to this curated playlist is narrowing down the top five results from your AncestryDNA results.

When I first received my results in early 2017, my top ethnic region was Senegal. But thanks to Ancestry updating and enhancing their reference samples, I started off my playlist adventure with the realization that Senegal actually represents a mere blip of my ethnic roots. I was admittedly bummed out—Senegal seems cool—but I moved on. As of right now, my top ethnic region is “Cameroon, Congo, and Southern Bantu Peoples” at 26 percent, followed by Mali at 20 percent, Benin/Togo at 18 percent, England/Wales/Northern Europe at 13 percent, and Ireland/Scotland at 11 percent.

Okay, got it:

Then came the playlist. I didn’t expect to be familiar with any of the African music, and what I heard sounded interesting enough.

One major stand out for me was a song called “Diaraby Nene” by Malian singer Oumou Sangaré. Listen, I don’t even know how much trust I can put into these regional results—what the hell does “Mali: 20 percent” mean anyway?—but I felt this song in the depths of my soul. Wow, the motherland jumped out!