Meet Jan Dan, ‘The Voice’ singer from N.J. who could win it all

Najee Daniels first tried out for “The Voice” in his early 20s.
When the New Jersey native performed for the show’s producers, they wanted to send him to California.
But he was having trouble with his throat, so he went to the doctor.
The diagnosis: tonsillitis and a throat nodule.
“I had to get a whole surgery,” he recalls. “I couldn’t even sing for three months.”
Years later, Daniels, who sings as Jan Dan, is one of the show’s top eight contestants heading into the semifinal round of season 26. He’s advanced to the first live show of the season, airing Monday, Dec. 2.
He has a chance to do something no singer from Jersey has ever done before:
Win “The Voice.”
Jan Dan, who grew up in Newark, has been praised on the NBC show for his smooth, agile delivery and versatility with various genres of music — talent nurtured by his family’s musical legacy.
He made a second run at “The Voice” after a producer who previously worked with him on the audition process reached out with a well-timed email.
Dan, now 30, had just resigned from his position as worship leader at an Ohio church. Music was part of that job, but he had a realization — he wanted to seriously pursue music as a career.
Having lived in Ohio for more than three years, he decided to move to Georgia to be with family. Three days after he made the decision, the producer’s note arrived asking if he would participate in a virtual audition for “The Voice” (his first audition, well before the COVID-19 pandemic, had been in person).
“I was a little skeptical at first, but then I said ‘why not?’” he tells NJ Advance Media.
He chose to take the chance with the encouragement of his wife, model Nicole Daniels.
The opportunity presented itself when another major life event was happening — they were expecting their first child.
In an episode of “The Voice” taped this past summer that aired in October, Gwen Stefani, Jan Dan’s coach, glowed that a baby was on the way.
“She’s due today,” Dan said.
Stefani stood up from her chair.
“What?!?” she exclaimed.
“She’s 2.5 centimeters dilated right now,” Dan said of his wife.
In a later episode, he told Stefani and guest mentor Sting that he made it to his daughter’s late-August delivery with 20 minutes to spare. Dan shared photos and video of the baby, Nori Arabella, with the “Voice” audience in November.
“We didn’t know how the show’s taping would overlap with everything going on, but it ended up being right at the same time,” he now says with a laugh. “It was a little stressful, but my wife is a superhero … she assured me along the way, the entire time, that this is what we all agreed to as a family.”
The singer was friends with his wife for a few years before they started dating and married in 2023.
“She would look me in the eye and tell me ‘you’re going to be something big, and you’re going to be a star,’” he says. “She would say stuff like that, and it would just make me super awkward … but I think her consistently saying that and being that person for me, it just made this process so much more easy … Of course, there’s times we wish I didn’t have to be doing the show. I missed a huge chunk of her third trimester, and pretty much the first month of my child’s life. But since being home before the live shows, I’ve just made up for all that time and more.”
When Dan made his debut on the show, he was 29. Days after his daughter’s birth, he turned 30.
Thinking about becoming a father was what moved the singer to embrace music as a career.
“My wife was pregnant at the time, and I really started to consider what type of parent I wanted to be,” he says. “And I really wanna be a parent that allows my child, or creates space for my child, to follow and do the thing that she loves to do, and I realized that I had to first give myself a shot at that.”
Before making inroads in music, Dan went to culinary school and worked in the food industry. He hosts pop-up kitchens from time to time.
“I’m still cooking,” he says.
Stepping away from an eight-year career as a worship leader in churches in Ohio and Georgia, Dan put his energy into his creating his own music. His artist name comes from his first name, Najee, spelled backwards, and the first part of his last name, Daniels.
In July, he released a self-titled debut album, followed by the single “Bleed” Nov. 22.
“That kind of talks about my whole experience and transition from the world that I used to live in to the world that I’m trying to kick my way through,” Dan says of the song.
The “Voice” contestant brings a rich musical heritage to the competition.
When he was 10, his family moved from Newark to Georgia when his mother, the R&B singer-songwriter Fundisha, signed with Jermaine Dupri’s Atlanta-based So So Def Recordings label.
“Growing up with her, being in the studio my whole entire childhood, that’s kind of what sparked this interest of music. Not just music, live performance, but I love to do studio work,” says Dan, who spoke with NJ Advance Media from his current home in Douglasville, Georgia (outside Atlanta) days before heading to Los Angeles for the live shows.
His mother became known for songs like “Live the Life” (2002) and her feature on Lil’ Bow Wow’s cover of “Basketball.”
Now she’s cheering on her son in the nationally televised competition.
“My mom has been extremely supportive,” he says. “We have a really close relationship, so she knows how much a shift had to have taken place in my heart for me to even want to do a show like this, because I used to be more laid back, cool, and did music passively. But for me to make a decision that I want to do this, she saw the fire in my eyes, and she just added fuel to that.”
And Dan’s mother isn’t the only musical influence in his life.
His father, DJ Shakim, is a DJ and turntablist with a deep love for hip-hop. He’s worked with New Edition, Bell Biv DeVoe and gospel artist Fred Hammond, and met Dan’s mother when he was working as Bow Wow’s DJ.
“They created this musical family,” Dan says.
“We would wake up every morning at around 9 a.m. to my dad blasting hip-hop music in the house,” he says. “My dad practiced every single day.”
He also played older music from Stevie Wonder.
Dan’s great-uncle was the poet, writer, playwright and activist Amiri Baraka, a founder of the Black Arts Movement. Baraka, who died in 2014, was poet laureate of New Jersey and father of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Dan says his work with jazz music was another major influence.
Dan’s uncle, Newark’s LaShawn Daniels, was also a Grammy-winning producer and songwriter. Daniels, who died in a car accident in South Carolina in 2019, often worked with Galloway’s Rodney Jerkins, the producer known as Darkchild.
In 2001, they won the Grammy for best R&B song for the Destiny’s Child song “Say My Name.”
“One of the things my uncle told me all the time — always go after music while doing something else,” Dan says. “Because of my experience of seeing my mom’s journey in the industry, I think I subconsciously wanted more security than the chance of making it in the music industry.”
“My uncle is definitely always at the forefront of my mind. I know he would’ve been extremely supportive. His wife, who’s still here, she’s been extremely supportive, and she’s kept me in a great headspace, thinking of what he would have thought during this time and how he would have supported me. But ultimately, he is the goal … he had a major success and people know him well in the industry … it’s just been an amazing journey to follow in his footsteps.”
Jan Dan’s uncle would go on to work with Beyoncé as a solo artist.
He also collaborated with Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, the Spice Girls, Toni Braxton, Tamar Braxton and Monica and Brandy.
When it came time for Dan’s big debut on the show during the show’s “blind” auditions — when all the coaches have their chairs turned away and listen to the contestant’s voice — he performed the Brandy song “Almost Doesn’t Count” (1999).
Dan was just five words into the song when Stefani and Michael Bublé smashed the button to turn their chairs.
While both artists wanted to recruit him for their teams, he went with Stefani after she gave him a quick pointer on making eye contact during a performance.
The star, who rose to fame leading No Doubt, said on the show that Dan didn’t need any help with his singing, just his stage presence and confidence.
“She is a visionary, and I think most people wouldn’t assume and immediately put that on her, but she has so much experience, and she gets music, she gets performance and she gets creating a feeling that you can’t forget when you’re performing,” Dan says.
“Being in the church can kind of make you a little more conservative or closed in, if you will. And she’s helped me to break that … The performances coming up soon, you’ll really get to see some of the ways that I’ve taken what she said and how I’m able to really become a better performer.”
In the show’s playoffs round, Dan moved Stefani to tears with his performance of the 1977 Kansas song “Dust in the Wind.”
“This is a man that chooses notes that are so artistic and beautiful,” she said, reacting to his stirring rendition of the classic rock song. “He’s a painter with his voice. I think you’re just so cool. I’m literally having to listen to the Spirit. Like, I think the Holy Ghost is over here.”
Earlier, Stefani used one of her “saves” to prevent Dan from being cut from the show in the knockouts round, after he performed the 2020 Miley Cyrus song “Angels Like You.” He’s one of two contestants from Team Gwen to make the semifinals — the other is Sydney Sterlace, a 15-year-old singer from West Seneca, New York (Erie County, near Buffalo).
Dan performed a duet with 14-year-old contestant Jaylen Dunham from Charlotte, North Carolina in the show’s battle round, charming the coaches with Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life.”
“So far, we’ve heard you sing Brandy, Stevie Wonder and Miley Cyrus, and now you’re singing ‘Dust in the Wind’ by Kansas,” Bublé said. “With all of these genres, what else do you have up your sleeve?”
The variety in Dan’s performances on the show reflects his wide-ranging musical tastes.
“I remember being a young middle schooler and I fell in love with Coldplay, which opened the door to so many other things, like The Fray and Paramore and OneRepublic, and I just enjoyed it,” he says. “That’s the era of music where I really engulfed and started to feel the emotion of music … Now I have a bunch of country singer friends and I’ve been learning more of the roots of country. I just love it. John Denver is one of my favorite country artists.”
Winners of “The Voice” receive $100,000 and a record deal with Universal Music Group.
Last year, Mara Justine, from Galloway, was second runner-up for season 24.
Other Jersey singers to place third/become second runner-up include Marlton’s Christina Grimmie, who made it to the final in 2014, two years before was fatally shot after a performance in Orlando when she was 22.
Wé McDonald, from Paterson, placed third in 2016 before going on to compete on “American Idol” in 2023 as Wé Ani.
Jacquie Lee, from Colts Neck, finished “The Voice” at the highest spot for a Jersey contestant — runner-up — in 2013.
“I think the best part of this experience is that I get a great start to my music career, and kind of like a rebirthing of who I am as an artist,” Dan says. “The exposure is something that’s unmatched, and no matter what happens — if I win, or am runner-up or nothing at all — I’m getting so many opportunities …
“It just showed me that no matter what I have to go through, no matter how I have to fight, that this is the thing that I wanna do, and there’s always an opportunity to do it, as long as I keep my head in the game and as long as I’m pursuing growth for myself as an artist.”
Jan Dan is set to perform next on “The Voice” Monday, Dec. 2. The show airs 8 p.m. ET on NBC and the results show airs 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, Dec. 3. “The Voice” streams on Peacock. Jan Dan is on Instagram at @iamjandan.
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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at [email protected] and followed at @AmyKup.