Grace Jones
Born May 19, 1948
Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model, actress, and performance artist whose fearless avant-garde persona — androgynous, theatrical, physically extraordinary, and musically groundbreaking — made her one of the defining cultural icons of the late 1970s and 1980s. Collaborating with visual artist Jean-Paul Goude, producers Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, and a rotating cast of creative collaborators, Jones created a body of work that bridged post-punk, new wave, reggae, and electronic pop while her image influenced virtually every major pop act of the subsequent decades.
Jamaica, Paris, and the Modelling Career
Born Grace Mendoza on May 19, 1948, in Spanish Town, Jamaica, she grew up partly in Syracuse, New York, where her family relocated in the 1960s. She studied theatre at the Onondaga Community College and the University of Syracuse before moving to New York City and subsequently Paris, where she established herself as one of the most in-demand fashion models of the early 1970s, working for Yves Saint Laurent, Claude Montana, and Issey Miyake. Her physical presence — tall, angular, with cheekbones engineered for photography — and her willingness to commit totally to a designer's vision made her a favorite of the fashion elite.
In Paris she also became a fixture in the studio recording scene, releasing three disco albums in the late 1970s that drew on the Parisian club circuit but had limited impact. The transformation came when she began working with Jamaican rhythm section Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, whose reggae-inflected production, and with French photographer and artist Jean-Paul Goude, whose visual work defined Jones's image as a kind of living sculpture — geometric, hieroglyphic, both ancient and futuristic simultaneously.
The Island Records Albums and Cultural Impact
Signed to Island Records by Chris Blackwell, Jones released what are now considered her artistic peaks: Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981), and Living My Life (1982). Nightclubbing in particular — featuring the title track, "Pull Up to the Bumper," and covers of songs by Joy Division and David Bowie — is regarded as one of the essential records of the early 1980s, a genuinely original fusion that sounded unlike anything being made elsewhere. Her flat, spoken-sung baritone delivery, her flat-top geometric haircut, and the visual vocabulary created with Goude made her an icon whose influence can be traced through Madonna, Rihanna, Janelle Monáe, and virtually every performer who subsequently experimented with androgyny and constructed image in pop.
Her acting career added the Bond film A View to a Kill (1985), in which she played the villainous May Day opposite Roger Moore, and Conan the Destroyer (1984). Her performances were physically overwhelming and tonally distinct from anything around them.
Did You Know?
Grace Jones famously hula-hooped continuously throughout her entire performance at the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II — a performance that was broadcast globally and prompted an immediate viral response. The hula-hooping while singing was not a stunt but a demonstration of her formidable physical conditioning, which she has maintained throughout her life.
Continuing Influence
Jones has continued performing and recording into her seventies, releasing the well-received album Hurricane in 2008 — nearly thirty years into her recording career — to critical acclaim, and touring globally into the 2010s and 2020s. Her autobiography, I'll Never Write My Memoirs (2015), provides a frank and vivid account of her extraordinary life. She has consistently refused commercial compromises that lesser figures made routinely, maintaining an artistic integrity that has only increased the reverence with which her classic work is regarded. She is cited by Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Solange, and many others as a foundational influence on their approach to art and performance.