Daveed Diggs

Diggs in 2016, photo by prphotos.com

Birth Name: Daveed Daniele Diggs

Place of Birth: Oakland, Alameda, California, United States

Date of Birth: January 24, 1982

Ethnicity:
*African-American (father)
*Ashkenazi Jewish (mother)

Daveed Diggs is an American actor, rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is the vocalist for hip hop group Clipping. His roles include the musical Hamilton, as well as the films Wonder, Blindspotting, Velvet Buzzsaw, Soul, and The Starling, and the series Black-ish and Snowpiercer.

His father, Dountes Darnell Diggs, is African-American, and originally from El Cerrito, California. His mother, Barbara, who is caucasian, is Jewish, and originally from Haskell, New Jersey. Daveed went to Hebrew school. The name Daveed means “beloved” in Hebrew.

Of his religion, he has said:

I am Jewish… I was raised as a more practising Jew than I am now. But still, [it was] this particular Berkeley brand of Judaism that’s pretty lax…

Daveed’s paternal grandmother has the surname Williams.

Daveed’s maternal grandfather is Melvin Needell/Needle (the son of Hyman Needell/Needle and Hannah). Melvin was born in New York, to parents from Russia.

Daveed’s maternal grandmother is named Flora Forman.

Sources: http://nypost.com
http://www.broadway.com