Art&Network | Lakecia Benjamin

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Lakecia Benjamin

Lakecia Benjamin is a 6x GRAMMY nominated New York-based saxophonist, arranger, composer, and educator. Her music offers a unique meld of R&B, several strains of jazz, and funk. Her warm, resonant tone (that has been compared to Johnny Hodges) lends itself to any form of music she chooses to play.

Benjamin was born in New York City and raised in Manhattan’s predominantly Dominican Washington Heights neighborhood. She won admission to LaGuardia High School and subsequently joined the renowned jazz program at the New School where she studied under jazz veterans. She has gone on to play and collaborate with Missy Elliott, Alicia Keys, Anita Baker, Robert Glasper, Stevie Wonder, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Angela Davis and many more.

Lakecia Benjamin is completing her new album to be released in March 2026

In collaboration with Fabrice Gogendau (3d Family)

Phoenix Reimagined

The success of her most recent releases, 2023’s Phoenix and 2020’s Pursuance: The Coltranes, positioned Benjamin among jazz’s most celebrated recording artists: In addition to absolute raves in outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian and DownBeat, she received three Grammy nominations for Phoenix, as well as an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Jazz Album.

“Phoenix” is a double metaphor. Lakecia Benjamin refers to the New York City she grew up in and watched slowly die during the pandemic and then come back to life. But it is also a personal reference to the death which she miraculously escapes from in the Fall of 2021 following a serious car accident. This new opus is also an opportunity to highlight her own compositions as well as the creativity, talent and commitment of the female artists she surrounds herself with. “Phoenix” marks yet another stratospheric rise for an artist who resolutely knows what she wants to say and how to say it, all the while honoring her mentors and the traditions that have come before her.