Born November 27th, 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa, the daughter of South African Jazz musicians Sathima Bea Benjamin and Abdullah Ibrahim, Jean studied Vocal Performance at the LaGuardia School of Music & Art before majoring in Music Business at NYU.

Teaming up with Ocean and DJ Aggie in the mid '90's, forming the group Natural Resource, the crew put out a series of independent singles, which created quite a stir on New York's underground Hip-Hop scene.

Picking up her Jean Grae moniker and droping her former alias What? What? in '98 upon Natural Resource's break-up, Jean released her first LP "Attack of the Attacking Things" in 2002. Which was followed up by two further albums over the course of the next two years.

She has also recorded tracks with numerous major hip hop artists, including Atmosphere, The Roots, Talib Kweli, The Herbaliser, Da Beatminerz, Phonte, Mr. Len, Masta Ace, Vordul Mega, C-Rayz Walz, and Immortal Technique.