Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (né Springer; 15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023) was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing.

He won the BBC Radio 4 Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998 and was the recipient of at least sixteen honorary doctorates.

In 1982, he released an album, Rasta, which featured the Wailers performing for the first time since the death of Bob Marley, acting as a tribute to Nelson Mandela.

It topped the charts in Yugoslavia, and due to its success Mandela invited Zephaniah to host the president's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in 1996.

A vegan and animal rights activist, who called himself an anarchist, Zephaniah supported changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote.

[6] The son of parents who had migrated from the Caribbean – Oswald Springer, a Barbadian postman, and Leneve (née Honeyghan),[7] a Jamaican nurse who came to Britain in 1956 and worked for the National Health Service[8] – he had a total of seven younger siblings, including his twin sister, Velda.

[10] His first performance was in church when he was 11 years old, resulting in him adopting the name Zephaniah (after the biblical prophet),[2] and by the age of 15, his poetry was already known among Handsworth's Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities.

[13] As a youth, he spent time in borstal and in his late teens received a criminal record and served a prison sentence for burglary.

[24] Rasta Time in Palestine (1990), an account of a visit to the Palestinian occupied territories, contained poetry and travelogue.

[25] Zephaniah was poet-in-residence at the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, and sat in on the inquiry into Bloody Sunday and other cases,[26] these experiences led to his Too Black, Too Strong poetry collection (2001).

[23][30][31][32] Poet Raymond Antrobus, who was given the novel when he had just started attending a deaf school, has written: "I remember reading the whole thing in one go.

[23] In 2013, Refugee Boy was adapted as a play by Zephaniah's long-time friend Lemn Sissay, staged at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

[36][37][38] In May 2011, Zephaniah accepted a year-long position as poet-in-residence at Keats House in Hampstead, London, his first residency role for more than ten years.

[2][41][42] In 2016, Zephaniah wrote the foreword to Angry White People: Coming Face-to-Face with the British Far Right by Hsiao-Hung Pai.

[46] On the publication of his young adult novel Windrush Child in 2020, Zephaniah was outspoken about the importance of the way history is represented in the curriculum of schools.

[47][48] Zephaniah made minor appearances in several television programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, including The Comic Strip Presents... (1988), EastEnders (1993), The Bill (1994), and Crucial Tales (1996).

[50] He was the "castaway" on the 8 June 1997 episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, where his chosen book was the Poetical Works of Shelley.

[52] In December 2012, he was guest editor of an episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Today, for which he commissioned a "good news bulletin".

[53][54] Between 2013 and 2022, Zephaniah played the role of preacher Jeremiah "Jimmy" Jesus in BBC television drama Peaky Blinders, appearing in 14 episodes across the six series.

[56] In 1982, Zephaniah released the album Rasta, which featured the Wailers' first recording since the death of Bob Marley as well as a tribute to the political prisoner (later to become South African president) Nelson Mandela.

[70] In 2012, Zephaniah worked with anti-racism organisation Newham Monitoring Project, with whom he made a video,[71][72] and Tower Hamlets Summer University (Futureversity) about the impact of Olympic policing on black communities.

[74] In November 2003, Zephaniah was offered appointment in the 2004 New Year Honours as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), for which he said he had been recommended by Tony Blair.

[82] Zephaniah was a supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and joined demonstrations calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, describing the activism as the "Anti Apartheid movement".

"[88] In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election.

The letter stated: "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few.

[105][106][3][42] Zephaniah lived for many years in east London; however, in 2008, he began dividing his time between a village near Spalding, Lincolnshire, and Beijing in China.

[111]His cousin, Michael Powell, died in police custody, at Thornhill Road police station in Birmingham, in September 2003 and Zephaniah regularly raised the matter,[77][112] continuously campaigning with his brother Tippa Naphtali, who set up a national memorial fund in Powell's name to help families affected by deaths in similar circumstances.

[3][4][121][122] His friend of nearly twenty years, Joan Armatrading, gave a tribute to him on Newsnight on BBC Two after hearing the news of his death.

[52] Fiona Bruce, the presenter of BBC's Question Time, on which Zephaniah was a regular panellist, paid tribute to him, saying: "He was an all round, just tremendous bloke" for whom she had "huge affection and respect".

[132][133] Following a public backlash,[134] an apology was issued,[135][136] and new artwork was subsequently commissioned from black artists, to be unveiled on 14 April at Handsworth Park.