Caribbean Beat — November/December 2018 (#154)

Despite her undeniable diva
status, and her elusiveness as a
subject, at home in Jamaica, she
can be herself.
The French photographer Jean-Paul Goude, her one-time
partner, created some of the most iconic images of Jones. “I
wanted to focus on Grace’s masculinity,” he recalls, “to use
what other people thought an embarrassment, and turn it
around to her advantage. I wanted to create — with her, of
course — a new character. It went beyond just a haircut, it was
an attitude. It was new and strong and ambiguous. You didn’t
know if it was a man trying to be a girl or a girl trying to be a
man. It was a revolution. I remember the A&R guys at Island
[Records] saying, ‘Are you f---ing crazy? This is never going to
work.’ And, of course, it did.”
“It made me look more abstract, less tied to a specific race or
sex or tribe,” Jones has said. “I was black, but not black; woman,
but not woman; American, but Jamaican; African, but science
fiction.”
The 1980s and the end of the disco era led Jones to New
Wave and more experimental work, including the albums
Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing, produced by the “Riddim
Jones’s “statuesque flamboyance” in
full display on stage
www.progressivecutt.com
58 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM