Benjamin Zephaniah, born Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, on April 15, 1958, was a British dub poet, writer, actor, musician, and professor of creative writing who lived until 2023. Raised in Birmingham, he began performing poetry at age 11 in church before moving to London, publishing his debut poetry collection, Pen Rhythm, in 1980. He released his debut studio album, Rasta, in 1982—featuring members of the Wailers—which topped the charts in Yugoslavia and led to an invitation from Nelson Mandela to host the Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996. His subsequent studio albums include Us An Dem in 1990, Back to Roots in 1995, Belly of De Beast in 1996, Naked in 2005, and Revolutionary Minds in 2017. He published young adult novels including Face in 1999 and Refugee Boy in 2001, wrote the radio play Hurricane Dub—which won the BBC Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998—and portrayed Jeremiah Jesus in the television drama series Peaky Blinders from 2013 to 2022. He was awarded 20 honorary doctorates and was named among The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008. He featured on Moby's 2024 track “Where Is Your Pride?” from the studio album Always Centered at Night. Zephaniah died of a brain tumor on December 7, 2023, at age 65.
