iSound

Julia Diaco “J-Dia” hails from Rumson, New Jersey. For most of her life, the possibilities of what lay on the other side of the Hudson River occupied her imagination. She first set foot on a stage at the age of five, took up vocal training at the age of seven, and wrote her first song at the age of nine. When she turned 17 and it came time to choose a college, she took another step in the same direction and was admitted to NYU. Little could she have guessed that a year later, on April 29, 2004, that The Daily News would blare this headline—and that it would be about her: “From Luxe Life to High Life: Pot Princess Perky After Bust.” Media helicopters descended on her parents’ house, her father’s construction company was scrutinized, and she was accused of mob ties, “simply because [her] surname ends in a vowel.” All her life, J-Dia has been a striver and a fighter, beginning with injuries from which she struggled to heal when she was only three years old and had to be rescued from ...