Caribbean Beat — November/December 2018 (#154)

In her memoirs, published with the title I’ll
Never Write My Memoirs, Grace Jones writes:
“Trends come along and people say, ‘Follow
that trend.’ There’s a lot of that around at the
moment: ‘Be like Sasha Fierce [Beyoncé].
Be like Miley Cyrus. Be like Rihanna. Be
like Lady Gaga. Be like Rita Ora and Sia. Be like
Madonna.’ I cannot be like them — except to the
extent that they are already being like me.”
Indeed, these contemporary cultural icons are
all — consciously or unknowingly — following the
woman who has rocked the music world to its very
foundations with her inimitable style, husky voice,
and boundless audacity over the last forty years.
“I have been so copied by those people who have
made fortunes that people assume I am that rich,”
Jones writes. “But I did things for the excitement,
the dare, the fact that it was new — not for the
money, and too many times I was the first, not the
beneficiary.”
Of course, she would have to be Jamaican. In her biographical film Bloodlight
and Bami, released in 2017, Jones’s Jamaicanness is clearly one of the
secrets to her success — manifested in the awesome physicality that makes
her performances so hypnotic (she still works out daily, lifting weights), the
scathing yet playful wit, and the absolute disdain for pretension. No other
culture could have produced a force so defiant, and revolutionary, as Grace
Jones. “Bloodlight” refers to the red light in the studio that is switched on
when an artiste is recording, and “Bami” is the popular Jamaican bread
made from cassava. The title alone lets us know how profoundly Jamaica
has shaped Grace Jones.
Of course, she would have to be Jamaican.
No other culture could have produced
a force so defiant, and revolutionary, as
Grace Jones
courtesy bloodlight and bami
Opposite page Grace Jones in 1986 Above The musical icon in a still from her biopic Bloodlight and Bami
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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