William Robinson Jr.
E435029
William Robinson Jr. is the birth name of Smokey Robinson, the legendary American singer, songwriter, and record producer who was a key figure in the development of Motown.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| William Robinson Jr. canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4366161 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: William Robinson Jr. Context triple: [Smokey Robinson, birthName, William Robinson Jr.]
-
A.
Boardman Robinson
Boardman Robinson was a Canadian-American artist, illustrator, and political cartoonist known for his powerful social and political commentary in early 20th-century publications.
-
B.
Sidney Darlington
Sidney Darlington was an American electrical engineer and inventor best known for his pioneering work in network theory and the invention of the Darlington transistor configuration.
-
C.
Louis Hobson
Louis Hobson is an American musical theatre actor best known for his work on Broadway, including originating a role in the acclaimed rock musical "Next to Normal."
-
D.
Thomas Parkhurst
Thomas Parkhurst was a 17th-century London bookseller and publisher known for issuing prominent Puritan and religious works.
-
E.
Philip Woodruff
Philip Woodruff was the pen name of British civil servant Philip Mason, best known for his influential writings on the British Raj and the Indian Civil Service.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: William Robinson Jr. Target entity description: William Robinson Jr. is the birth name of Smokey Robinson, the legendary American singer, songwriter, and record producer who was a key figure in the development of Motown.
-
A.
Boardman Robinson
Boardman Robinson was a Canadian-American artist, illustrator, and political cartoonist known for his powerful social and political commentary in early 20th-century publications.
-
B.
Sidney Darlington
Sidney Darlington was an American electrical engineer and inventor best known for his pioneering work in network theory and the invention of the Darlington transistor configuration.
-
C.
Louis Hobson
Louis Hobson is an American musical theatre actor best known for his work on Broadway, including originating a role in the acclaimed rock musical "Next to Normal."
-
D.
Thomas Parkhurst
Thomas Parkhurst was a 17th-century London bookseller and publisher known for issuing prominent Puritan and religious works.
-
E.
Philip Woodruff
Philip Woodruff was the pen name of British civil servant Philip Mason, best known for his influential writings on the British Raj and the Indian Civil Service.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | human ⓘ |
| activeYearsStart | 1950s ⓘ |
| associatedAct |
Berry Gordy
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Motown Records NERFINISHED ⓘ The Miracles NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| birthName | William Robinson Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| ethnicGroup |
Black Americans
ⓘ
surface form:
African American
|
| familyName | Robinson NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre |
R&B
ⓘ
doo-wop ⓘ pop music ⓘ soul music ⓘ |
| givenName | William ⓘ |
| hasPart |
career with The Miracles
ⓘ
solo career ⓘ |
| instrument |
piano
ⓘ
vocals ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| memberOf | The Miracles NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| movement | Motown NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableAchievement | key figure in the development of the Motown sound ⓘ |
| notableAward |
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient
ⓘ
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee ⓘ Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee ⓘ |
| notableSongWrittenForOthers |
Ain’t That Peculiar
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
My Girl NERFINISHED ⓘ My Guy NERFINISHED ⓘ The Way You Do the Things You Do NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Being with You
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Cruisin’ NERFINISHED ⓘ I Second That Emotion NERFINISHED ⓘ Shop Around NERFINISHED ⓘ The Tears of a Clown NERFINISHED ⓘ The Tracks of My Tears NERFINISHED ⓘ You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| occupation |
record executive
ⓘ
record producer ⓘ singer ⓘ songwriter ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Detroit, Michigan, United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| positionHeld | vice president of Motown Records ⓘ |
| residence |
Los Angeles
ⓘ
surface form:
Los Angeles, California, United States
|
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| stageName | Smokey Robinson NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: William Robinson Jr. Description of subject: William Robinson Jr. is the birth name of Smokey Robinson, the legendary American singer, songwriter, and record producer who was a key figure in the development of Motown.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.