PROVOKR Icon: Grace Jones
A tribute to the trailblazing diva
At last year’s Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn, 67-year-old Grace Jones—looking as lithe and beautiful as ever—got up on stage and performed a rendition of her 1985 hit single “Slave to the Rhythm” while topless and hip-swiveling a hula-hoop. Her performance was a vivid reminder that long before Miley Cyrus, the Jamaican singer/model/actress was the epitome of provocative chic. In fact, Jones sees a direct (but less successful) link between her antics in the 1980s and the more recent musical acts who seem to be constantly trying to shock the public. “They make it so obvious,” said Jones. “But they don’t quite have the conviction. It’s always someone styling them, for example. It’s not coming from them.” Jones has said that she has had people tell her to “Be like Sasha Fierce. 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.”
Born in Jamaica, Jones first found success as a model in Paris in the early 1970s (where she roomed with Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange). In the late 1970s, she landed a record deal and later went on to star in films like Conan the Barbarian and, most notably, as May Day, one of the villains in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill.
During the 1980s, Jones also became known as a sleek, androgynous representative of New York’s booming underground and nightclubbing scene in New York City. As Jones wrote in her 2015 memoir cheekily titled I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, “It was a very small community, New York. The club scene, the art world, the music people, the fashion freaks, the energized, dislocated misfits, the gay spirit, different generations, various tribes with no name, all overlapping and interacting and spiraling off into new shapes. Studio 54 appealed to my sense of outrage; the underground clubs appealed to my sense of exploration and adventure. It was the two sides of me—or two of the many sides—craving freedom. Fifty-Four offered a self-indulgent, excessive, even amoral form of freedom, and was a place where I could let it all hang out; the underground clubs satisfied the explorer in me seeking new discoveries. The key was learning how to balance these two sides—the irreverent me who’d turn up at a nightclub like I was the circus coming to town, and the me who was always interested in invention and innovation.”
To give you a real feel for the Grace Jones of the ‘70s and ‘80s here are four videos that showcase her uniquely edgy style.
Grace Jones singing her rendition of the Edith Piaf song “La Vie en Rose”
Jones’ music video for her 1980 cover of the Roxy Music song “Love is the Drug”
Jones’ hit “Pull Up to the Bumper” (1981)
1985’s “Slave to the Rhythm”
