Daveed Diggs

Daveed Daniele Diggs (born January 24, 1982) is an American actor, rapper, and singer-songwriter.

Diggs is an alumnus of Berkeley High School and Brown University, where he graduated in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in theatre arts.

He was recruited by Brown for his track skills and broke the Brown Bears' school record in the 110-meter hurdles as a sophomore with a time of 14.21 seconds.

After graduating, he worked as a substitute teacher.

Diggs performed in experimental theater early in his career, most notably when he was on the national tour for Marc Bamuthi Joseph's choreopoem, Word Becomes Flesh, about a nine-month pregnancy through the eyes of a young, single father.

He also frequently performed in regional Shakespeare productions.

Diggs met playwright, composer, actor, and rapper Lin-Manuel Miranda through Thomas Kail while performing with the freestyle rap group Freestyle Love Supreme, or FLS.

Diggs is the vocalist of and writer for the experimental hip-hop and rap group clipping. The group was founded by William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes in 2009, with Diggs joining in 2010.

In 2010, he made an album with Rafael Casal titled The BAY BOY Mixtape. Diggs also founded a hip hop triumvirate with Chinaka Hodge and Casal known as The Getback.

The Getback later became a collaborative ensemble composed of Diggs, Hodge, Casal and other artists along with a band formed by drummer Chukwudi Hodge, turntablist Dion Decibels and Max Miller-Logan on trumpet and Keys.

Though the band have diversified themselves from their work with the ensemble, they are still known as The GetBack (Get:Band) on Facebook.

In 2012, Miranda invited Diggs to read and hear early versions of Hamilton.

Diggs was impressed by Miranda's demos and passion for the project, and saw that the concept was a prospective use of the rap-musical medium.

Two years later, in 2012, he released his first solo rap album, Small Things to a Giant, composed of original music he had written.

Both The BAY BOY Mixtape and Small Things to a Giant included other artists in The Getback collective.

He is also a member of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail's freestyle rap group Freestyle Love Supreme, or FLS, which performs across the country.

The trio self-released their first mixtape album midcity in 2013 to fairly positive reviews.

The group has released two EPs, #MONSANTO (2013) and 2014's #POPPUNK, as well as Live, a 20-minute short film of a live performance.

Signing with Sub Pop, they released their album CLPPNG in 2014, which they promoted with their CLPPNG Tour.

He is the vocalist of the experimental hip hop group Clipping, and in 2015, he originated the dual roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the musical Hamilton, for which he won a 2016 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.

Along with the main cast of Hamilton, he was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in the same year.

He played the roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette off Broadway in 2015, continuing with the roles when the show was moved to Broadway later in the year.

Since leaving Hamilton, he played a recurring role in the television series Black-ish (2016–2018) and co-starred in the films Wonder (2017), Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) and The Little Mermaid (2023).

For his performance, Diggs won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, as well as a 2016 Grammy Award for the cast album.

Diggs played his final performance in the show on July 15, 2016.

In 2016, they released an EP titled Wriggle, then the album Splendor & Misery.

They released their debut album soft rules in 2016.

His rapping has also been featured on tracks by Busdriver, George Watsky, Rafael Casal, and Leslie Odom, Jr., and he wrote and performed a rap number for the 2016 animated film Zootopia.

In 2017, they released The Deep, a five-and-a-half minute track that tells the story of a society of slave descendants living underwater.

Diggs also wrote, produced, and starred in the 2018 film Blindspotting, which earned him a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead; he acted as creator, writer, and executive producer on the 2021 spin-off sequel television series of the same name, in which he also reprised his role as a guest.

In 2018, the song was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).

In 2019, they released an album titled There Existed an Addiction to Blood; additionally, in 2020, the group released the album Visions of Bodies Being Burned.

Diggs is a member of True Neutral Crew, with Brian Kinsman, Margot Padilla, and Signor Benedick the Moor.

As of 2020, he stars in the television adaptation of Snowpiercer.

In 2021, he received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance in the Disney+ live stage recording of Hamilton which was released in 2020.

Diggs was born in Oakland, California, the son of Barbara, a social worker, and Dountes Diggs, a bus driver.

His mother is Jewish, and his father is African-American.

His parents named him "Daveed", the Hebrew pronunciation of David.

Diggs has said, David' means beloved in Hebrew... They spelled it with two Es because my dad liked the look of it." His parents' ethnic and racial identities have contributed to his own self-identification: "The cultures never seemed separate—I had a lot of mixed friends.

When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad's side too."