Daveed Diggs Biography

Daveed Daniele Diggs (born January 24, 1982) is an American actor and rapper. He is the vocalist of the hip hop group clipping., and originated the role of Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson in the 2015 musical Hamilton, for which he won a Grammy Award and a Tony Award in 2016.

Early life

Diggs was born in Oakland, California. He has described his mother as Jewish and his father as 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 E"?s because my dad liked the look of it."? His parents' ethnic/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."?

Diggs is an alumnus of Berkeley High School and of Brown University, from which he graduated in 2004. He was originally recruited for his track skills and eventually earned a degree in theatre. Diggs broke the Brown Bears' school record in the 110 meter hurdles as a sophomore when he finished with a time of 14.21 seconds.

Career

Theatre

Diggs performed in a lot of experimental theatre early on, 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. Aside from his experimental work, he frequently performed in regional Shakespeare productions.

Lin-Manuel Miranda later invited Diggs to read and hear early versions of Hamilton. Diggs was impressed by Miranda's demos and obvious passion for the project, and saw that the concept was a perceptive use of the rap-musical medium. He became part of the musical and 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. 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.

Music

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. The trio ultimately self-released their first mixtape album midcity in 2013 to fairly positive reviews, leading them to be signed to Sub Pop. They released their album CLPPNG in 2014, which was promoted with their CLPPNG Tour. In 2016, they released an EP titled Wriggle, followed by the album Splendor & Misery.

He is also a member of True Neutral Crew, alongside Brian Kinsman, Margot Padilla and Signor Benedick the Moor. The group have released two EPs, #MONSANTO (2013) and 2014's #POPPUNK, as well as Live, a 20-minute short film of a live performance. They released their debut album soft rules in 2016.

In 2010 he made a duo album with Rafael Casal titled The BAY BOY Mixtape. Two years later, in 2012, he released his first solo rap album, Small Things to a Giant, composed of entirely original music he had written. As of 2016, Diggs has been working on a new solo rap release, set for release toward the end of 2016 or early in 2017.

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.

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.

Theatre credits

Year	Title	Role	Details
2004-08	Word Becomes Flesh	Performer	US Tour (also co-writer)
2005	Temptation	Foustka	Custom Made Theatre Company
2006	Two Rooms	Walker	Custom Made Theater Company
2006	The Tempest	Ferdinand/Caliban	San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
2007	Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train	Angel	San Francisco Playhouse
2007	Six Degrees of Separation	Paul	San Francisco Playhouse
2008	Troilus and Cressida	Troilus	Pacific Repertory Theatre
2010	Red Light Winter	Matt	Custom Made Theatre Company
2010	Mirrors in Every Corner	Watts	Intersection for the Arts
2010	In the Red and Brown Water	The Ogungun	Marin Theatre Company
2011	Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine	Flow	The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
2012	A Behanding in Spokane	Toby	San Francisco Playhouse
2015	Hamilton	Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson	off-Broadway
2015-16			Broadway

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2010	Rock Hard: The Rise and Fall of Sexual Detergent	Neil Davis	Short
2012	Yoga Boner	Daveed	Short
2014	Live	Performer	Short
2016	Zootopia		Writer and performer: "Parlez-Vous Rap"
2016	#BARS Mixtape Musical Medley Vol. 1	Hobbes	Short
2017	Wonder	Mr. Browne	Completed
2017	Ferdinand	Dos (voice)	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2014	Hobbes and Me	Hobbes	8 episodes (web series)
2015-2016	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Counselor Henderson	2 episodes
2016-2017	The Get Down	Adult Ezekiel "Zeke" Figuero/Narrator	10 episodes
2016-2017	Black-ish	Johan Johnson	7 episodes
2017	Sesame Street	Mr. Noodle's Brother, Mr. Noodle	1 episode
2017	Tour de Pharmacy	Young Slim Klingston	TV movie

Discography

• The BAY BOY Mixtape (2010) - collaboration with Rafael Casal
• Small Things to a Giant (2012)

With clipping.

• Dba118 (2012) - EP
• midcity (2013)
• Something They Don't Know b/w Mouth (2014) - single
• CLPPNG (2014)
• Wriggle (2016) - EP
• REMXNG (2016) - EP
• Splendor & Misery (2016)

With True Neutral Crew

• #MONSANTO (2013) - EP
• #POPPUNK (2014) - EP
• soft rules (2016)

Featured artist

• The Monster (2009) - featured on "Running Down" & "Wise Guys"
• Mean Ones (2012) - additional vocals
• Hamilton (2015) - original Broadway cast recording
• Thumbs (2015) - featured on "Surrounded by Millionaires"
• Good For You (2016) - single; featured rapper
• Maiden Voyage Suite (2016) - EP by Sir Benedick the Moor; featured on 1200am
• x Infinity (2016) - featured on Exquisite Corpse

Concerts

• midcity promotional concerts (5 shows, in the US and UK, Feb. 19, 2013 - Mar. 18, 2014)
• CLPPNG Tour (19 shows, in the US and the UK, Jul. 3 - Nov. 10, 2014)
• #POPPUNK promotional concerts (3 shows, in the US, Jul. 17, 2014 - Jun. 5, 2015)

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2015	Lucille Lortel Awards	Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical	Hamilton
	Drama League Award	Distinguished Performance
	Theatre World Award	Outstanding Debut Performance
2016
	Tony Award	Best Featured Actor in a Musical
	Drama League Award	Distinguished Performance
	Grammy Award	Best Musical Theater Album
	Fred and Adele Astaire Award	Best Male Dancer
	Broadway.com Audience Awards	Favorite Featured Actor in a Musical
		Favorite Funny Performance
		Favorite Breakthrough Performance (male)