Grace Jones

Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, Grace Jones grew up between the Caribbean and the United States before being noticed as a model in New York and then Paris in the early 1970s. This background informed a distinctive musical career, initially rooted in disco with Portfolio (1977), Fame (1978) and Muse (1979), and later shifting toward a more angular blend of new wave, reggae, funk, post‑punk and art pop. At the turn of the 1980s she recorded in Nassau with the Compass Point All Stars and, together with Sly & Robbie, developed a taut, minimal and danceable sound on Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981) and Living My Life (1982). Her deep voice, often close to sprechgesang, contrasts with precise arrangements and a highly constructed approach to covers, from “Private Life” to “Love Is the Drug”. Grace Jones’s image, partly shaped with Jean‑Paul Goude, accompanied this evolution without ever summing it up. Her subsequent releases included Slave to the Rhythm (1985), Inside Story (1986), Bulletproof Heart (1989) and, after a long recording hiatus, Hurricane (2008). She later collaborated with Gorillaz and Beyoncé while maintaining a parallel career in film.