This Wednesday, Nov. 9, Vanderbilt Speakers Committee is bringing Daveed Diggs to campus to participate in a Q&A session, starting at 7 p.m.. Professor Jim Lovensheimer will moderate the event, and Diggs will take questions from the audience later on.
Chancellor Zeppos and Professor Alice Randall will be hosting a roundtable discussion on Hamilton prior to Diggs’ session, from 6:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m..
For those unfamiliar with this Diggs, the Vanderbilt Hustler is here to tell you what you need to know before going to the event.
Most people know Daveed Diggs for his roles as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the original Broadway cast of “Hamilton: An American Musical.” This show and its actors skyrocketed to fame, and through this role Diggs earned a Grammy and a Tony. He brings a hip-hop attitude to the iconic figures he plays, and in the song “Guns and Ships” he sets a broadway record by rapping 19 words in 3 seconds, all while donning a French accent.
Daveed did not just come on the scene with Hamilton; he has been working in hip-hop for several years in an experimental industrial rap group known as clipping.
clipping, intentionally not capitalized, is not your typical rap ensemble. Their first album dabbles in the darker side of this art, bringing noisey and abrasive beats and dark or sadistic stories about the California night-life, gangs, and crime, among other things.
Daveed and the two other producers of clipping released their second album this year not long after he stopped working on Hamilton. This time it is a huge concept album about a guy exiled to a space craft heading deep into space who starts going mad, and the space ship is actually the narrator and is in love with the guy. The songs range from rap bangers to gospel hymns to spacey ambient pieces with spoken word-like verses. After working on Hamilton he decided to create something bigger and bolder and more narrative-based with his music.
Daveed now also has a role on the ABC sitcom “black-ish,” a role he earned in part by impressing creator Kenya Barris during his displays on talent in Hamilton.
Diggs took to the campaign trail recently in a PSA video where he compares Clinton and Trump on the issues. In the video he restates quotes and platforms of both candidates, and concludes by encouraging viewers to vote.
Diggs has been multitalented from the start, having attended Brown University as a track recruit, and finding his love of theater there. Since then he has grown in the world of performing arts, be it with clipping, “Hamilton,” “black-ish,” or whatever his next endeavor may be.