Zia Benjamin

"Zia's brand combines her resonant, soulful voice with genre-blurring songs that fuse smoky jazz, retro dancehall and bubbling roots reggae into a style she calls rum shop blues." - Billboard

Jamaican-born, Zia Benjamin is a rare type of DIY artist. Singing and songwriting are natural gifts, which earned her credits on Major Lazer’s “Jet Blue Jet” (100 million+ YouTube views) and Sean Paul’s “Standing There.” Diplo of Major Lazer was particularly drawn to her "Billie Holiday swag." Yet as a bonafide star with vocal range and charisma, Zia is also directs her own music videos. In 2017, the Caribbean siren released her noir-style video for her debut single “No Fame,” a gripping #MeToo story about the music industry’s toxic masculinity. The song caught the attention of David Rodigan (BBC Radio), who was “blown away by [Zia’s] spoken word gem.” Jamaican legend RoryStoneLove (featured on Beyonce & Jay-Z “Summer”) produced “No Fame” as well as “Mr.Neverman,” which recently earned international support from DJ Khaled on his Instagram, David Rodigan, SeaniB (BBC1trxa) and Becca Dudley (Beats1/MTV UK). Zia’s musical influences are a cross-cultural patchwork of jazz, neo-soul, pop, and retro-dancehall converging into a sound she calls “Rum Shop Blues.” Zia’s third single "Rudie" produced by 3x GRAMMY-nominated production duo Loudcity Music and ZJ Sparks landed her a Discovered Feature on EBRO Darden's Apple Music Beats1 Radio show. Zia is now prepping for her debut EP.