About the artist
Jodi Benson is an American actress and soprano best known as the voice of Ariel in Disney's animated classic The Little Mermaid, a role she has reprised across sequels, video games, and stage productions since 1989. Trained in musical theatre, she built a career on Broadway before her breakout with Disney, and her clear, expressive soprano became one of the defining vocal signatures of the animated musical genre in that era.
Beyond Ariel, Benson has voiced other memorable characters, including Barbie in the Toy Story franchise, lending her warm, theatrical delivery to both dramatic and comedic roles. Her singing style sits firmly within the Broadway-influenced pop tradition that shaped Disney's late-1980s and 1990s musical renaissance, marked by clarity of diction, emotional phrasing, and a bright upper register suited to soaring ballads like «Part of Your World».
Her collaborations with Disney's music team, particularly composers associated with the studio's animated musical era, cemented songs like «Part of Your World» as genre-defining pieces of family and musical-theatre pop. Benson remains closely tied to the character of Ariel decades after the film's release, continuing to perform and voice the role at Disney events and in later media.