Darvin Nelson

Darvin Ledell Nelson II was born in Corpus Christi, TX to Darvin Nelson Sr. and Tuwana Gadsden. His his family moved to Jacksonville, FL when his father was stationed at a Jacksonville navy base. Nelson was enrolled in LaVilla School of the Arts and obtained an artistic foundation in drawing, painting, and sculpture. His 8th grade year, he additionally took dance classes at the school including classical ballet. After middle school, he went to Douglas Anderson School of the Arts for visual art, after not being accepted to their dance program. However, there he excelled in photography and was granted a scholarship for the Maryland Institute College of Arts Pre-college program in the summer of 2018. His senior year of high school, he re-discovered performance in an issue-based theater class.

Nelson attended the University of North Florida and studied visual art - mainly photography. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2023, he began performing original music at a bar called Rain Dogs and, later that year, auditioning for community theater and meeting local film makers. Since then, Nelson has been cast in a handful of local low-budget short films and film festival projects including Blood Reckoning (2023) and Lunch Games (2024). He soon joined community theater and was cast in "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" (2024), "Tarzan: The Musical" (2024) and "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical" (2024) at Players by the Sea.

In 2025, he released his self-produced and self-written debut EP, "The Mystic" (available to stream on all platforms).