Damián Beckford
Damián Beckford, called Dame by his family, was a Jamaican and Dominican American aspiring singer from Paterson, New Jersey. He was the eldest child of Nadine Beckford and Joaquín Peralta and the older brother of Nadia Beckford and Jaz. Damián encouraged Nadia’s singing and urged her to perform at her first open mic. He was shot and killed in Paterson in 2023 at approximately twenty-one years old.
Early Life and Musical Interests
Damián grew up in a household shaped by his Jamaican mother’s singing and his Dominican father’s music. Church music and reggae from Nadine’s side of the family shared space with merengue, bachata, and Spanish from Joaquín’s.
He was the first of the children to pursue music after his mother. He sang constantly, learned reggae and R&B by ear, and carried himself with the easy charisma of someone who seemed to belong onstage even before he had one. He was openly gay and accepted as himself at home. He had a boyfriend at the time of his death.
Relationship with Nadia
Damián heard Nadia singing quietly when she was young and encouraged her to sing openly. He told her she had a gift, hyped her voice whenever she tried to hide it, and pushed her toward her first open mic. His confidence in her came before anyone outside the family had heard her perform.
Nadia later connected some of her early music to Damián’s memory. She carried a recording of his singing and created the ‘’Fi Dame’’ playlist in remembrance of him. Her performance motto, “You’re going to feel me,” also came to carry a meaning tied to Damián: she sang, in part, for the brother who first urged her onto a stage.
Death
In 2023, when Damián was approximately twenty-one and Nadia approximately seventeen, he and his boyfriend were walking home in Paterson while singing along to music playing through his headphones. They were attacked, and Damián was shot and killed.
Investigators never determined whether the attack was random or targeted because Damián was openly gay and with another man. The case remained unresolved. For his family, not knowing why he had been killed remained painful alongside the loss itself.
Legacy and Memory
Damián remained present in his family’s music and stories after his death. Nadia wrote and performed material connected to his memory, while Nadine continued to carry him through her singing. The loss contributed to Nadia’s guardedness and protectiveness, and years later Ezra Cruz recognized grief like his own when he first heard her sing. Nadia later taught her son, Raffie, about the maternal uncle he had never met.
Joaco grew quieter after losing his son. Nadia and Jaz became closer in their shared loss and learned young that loving people was dangerous and worth it anyway. Their continued love for one another carried that knowledge alongside the grief.