Welcome back to another deep dive. Today we are
looking at someone who I think a lot of people
recognize instantly, but maybe don't actually
know. You see the flat top haircut, the angular
suit, that scowl that could cut glass, and you
think icon. Right. You think performance art.
You think Bond villain. But who is the person
inside that suit? We are talking about the one
and only Grace Jones. it's such a fascinating
subject because for so many people grace jones
is an image first and um a human being second
exactly she's this hyper stylized entity part
amazonian warrior part disco queen part i don't
know walking art object right But the sources
we're looking at today, especially her own memoir,
I'll Never Write My Memoirs, along with biographical
data, discography notes, they tell a much, much
more complex story. Yes. And our mission today
is to unpack that human story. We want to figure
out how this shy girl from a very strict religious
upbringing in Jamaica ended up conquering the
Parisian fashion world, the New York nightlife
scene, and then eventually Hollywood. It is a
journey from the church pew to the disco floor.
And trust me, there are some serious twists along
the way. It really is a collision of worlds.
I mean, you have the strict Pentecostal faith
of her childhood just smashing right into the
absolute hedonism of the 70s and 80s. And somehow
she comes out the other side. She doesn't just
come out the other side. She sort of emerges
from that collision as this completely singular.
pop culture entity. There's no one like her.
And the sheer breadth of her influence is just
staggering when you lay it all out. I mean, she's
a Bond girl, a Bond villain, actually. A much
better villain than a Bond girl, I think. Oh,
for sure. She's a disco pioneer. She's a new
wave icon, amused to artists like Keith Haring
and Andy Warhol. And she is a walking contradiction.
That's what I love about this story. She is the
daughter of a preacher who became the queen of
gay discos. It doesn't make any sense on paper.
None. She was a muse who is described by her
own creative partner, her lover, as beautiful
and grotesque. It's those tensions, you know,
that make her so endlessly interesting. So let's
go back to the very beginning. Because if you
think Grace Jones just, you know, popped out
of the womb wearing a tuxedo and holding a microphone,
you are very wrong. Very wrong. She was born
in 1948 in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Okay, so talk
about the family dynamic because you said it
was crucial. Right. it is absolutely crucial
to understanding her entire psyche her father
robert w jones was a local politician and a clergyman
a bishop actually wow but the uh the defining
event of her childhood the thing that really
shaped her happened when her parents moved to
the east coast of the united states to find work
This was a pretty common thing back then, right?
Parents would go ahead to get established before
bringing the kids over. Exactly. It was quite
common for that generation. But the consequence,
the really difficult consequence, was that they
left Grace and her siblings behind in Jamaica.
And who were they left with? They were left in
the care of her step -grandfather, a man they
were forced to call Maspy, which stood for Master
P. Master P. That sounds... ominous it was by
all accounts this was a deeply traumatic experience
for her i was reading about this in the notes
and it's heavy stuff she describes him as a strict
disciplinarian but that feels like a huge understatement
It's a massive understatement. The sources describe
serious, serious abuse. He would beat the children
for, and this is a quote, any little act of dissent.
Any little act? Any little thing. It wasn't just
physical discipline either. It was this rigid,
oppressive, religious environment. They had prayer
meetings and Bible readings every single night.
No exceptions. And Grace has a very specific,
a very powerful way of describing this, doesn't
she? She does. It's a quote that just sticks
with you. She describes her childhood as being
crushed underneath the Bible. Wow. Crushed underneath
the Bible. It suggests this immense weight, you
know, suffocation. It wasn't just that they had
to go to church. It was that the religion itself
was weaponized against them. Every action, every
thought was scrutinized. It's just so hard to
reconcile that image, that oppressed little girl
with the fierce, untouchable warrior woman we
all know today. Well, actually, if you connect
the dots, it makes a strange kind of sense. Glace
has analyzed this herself looking back. What
did she say? She later stated that she is militant
and disciplined precisely because of this upbringing.
Oh, I see. So the framework remained, but she
completely changed the purpose of it. Precisely.
She said, and I love this quote, I am very militant
and disciplined. even if that sometimes means
being militantly naughty. Militantly naughty.
That's perfect. It is. She essentially took that
rigid training, how to stand, how to endure,
how to hold herself under pressure, and she applied
it to what she calls the arts of subversion.
She used the strength that was forged in that
fire to create a persona that no one could ever
crush again. That is such a powerful reframing
of trauma. So she's enduring this in Jamaica,
but eventually... The family does reunite, right?
Yes. At age 13, she moves to the U .S. to join
her parents. They'd settled in Lincourt, New
York, which is near Syracuse. A bit of a culture
shock, I'd imagine. A huge culture shock. And
by this point, her father had had this intense
spiritual experience during a suicide attempt,
which led him to establish his own ministry,
the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. So the
religious environment didn't get any less intense.
Not at all. But she didn't exactly fall in line
with her dad's church, did she? No. Not for long.
Sources say she enrolled at Onondaga Community
College, where she majored in Spanish. And this
is where the rebellion really starts to kick
in. It really does. She starts wearing makeup,
which was forbidden. She starts drinking alcohol.
And this is a key detail. She starts visiting
gay clubs with her brother. And this is where
it gets kind of funny to me. She develops a whole
alter ego to hide all of this from her parents.
The Mendoza persona. Yes. She started working
as a go -go dancer. But she couldn't let Bishop
Robert W. Jones find out about that. Not a chance.
So she used the surname Mendoza. Can you just
imagine? No, Dad, that's not me dancing in a
cage downtown. That's Grace Mendoza. It really
speaks to that duality we mentioned earlier.
She was absolutely living two lives. But her
rebellion wasn't just about nightlife. She fully
immersed herself in the 60s counterculture. How
so? She moved to Philadelphia for summer stock
theater. She lived in hippie communes. Total
immersion. And the sources also mentioned she
experimented with LSD. She did. And unlike many
who look back on that kind of thing with regret,
she praised it. She said it was, and I quote,
very important for my emotional growth and that
the mental exercise was good for me. So she was
systematically dismantling the widget box her
childhood had put her in, brick by brick. Every
last one. So she's broken out of the box. She's
Grace Mendoza, the go -go dancer. But how does
she get from Syracuse to the cover of Vogue?
Well, at 18, she moves back to New York City
and signs with Wilhelmina Models. But the American
market, they didn't quite know what to do with
her yet. They weren't ready. Not at all. So in
1970, she makes the move that changes everything.
She goes to Paris. And Paris was ready. Paris
was more than ready. They were completely entranced.
The Parisian fashion scene embraced her dark
skin, her androgynous features, that bold, almost
intimidating look. And she started working with
the biggest names? Immediately. We're talking
Yves Saint Laurent, Kenzo. She was on the covers
of Elle and Vogue Homes. She just exploded. And
she wasn't just working. She was living the life.
I love this detail about her roommates. It sounds
like the setup for a sitcom, doesn't it? She
lived with Jerry Hall. Future Mrs. Mick Jagger.
And Jessica Lange. Future Oscar winner. That
is an insane amount of star power in one apartment.
Can you imagine? And they were at the absolute
center of the scene. They were regulars at Les
Sept, which was one of Paris' most popular gay
clubs. She's hanging out with Giorgio Armani
and Karl Lagerfeld. She was essentially royalty
in both the underground and high fashion worlds
simultaneously. But the visual evolution of Grace
Jones, the icon Grace Jones, really hits a new
level when she meets one specific person. Jean
-Paul Goude. Jean -Paul Goude. This is a critical
partnership. He was a French illustrator, a photographer,
a graphic designer. They actually met in New
York, but their collaboration is what defines
her visual identity for the next decade. And
they became partners romantically, too. They
did. They had a son, Paulo, together. But professionally,
what he did to her image was, well, it was literal
manipulation. He called it the French correction.
Okay. You have to unpack that for us. So Goody
viewed Grace as his ultimate muse. He famously
described her as beautiful and grotesque at the
same time. Which is a thing to say about your
partner. It certainly is. And his technique involved
taking photographs of her, cutting them up with
scissors or a knife, and physically rearranging
them, elongating her limbs, exaggerating the
angles, creating these impossible geometries
with her body. So it's Photoshop before Photoshop.
Exactly, but all analog. The most famous example,
the one everyone knows, is the Island Life album
cover. Oh yeah, the arabesque pose. That's the
one! She's holding a microphone, standing on
one leg, with her other leg pulled up impossibly
behind her head. It looks incredible, but when
you actually look at it... Don't you realize
you can't do that? It's anatomically impossible.
Her ribcage is twisted one way, her hips are
facing another. Goad constructed that image from
multiple photos to create what he called a credible
illusion. He wasn't interested in reality. Not
at all. He was interested in creating a hyperreality.
With grace as his medium. Now we have to look
at the complexity of this relationship. Because
Goad wasn't just taking pretty pictures. He was
exploring some really intense themes. That's
right. And this is where it gets complicated.
Goad had a deep fascination with what he termed
exoticism. And in 1978, he created an artwork
titled Nigger Arabesque, which is the piece that
became that island life image. The title itself
is. It's incredibly jarring. It is. And it sparked
a lot of discussion then. now about the nature
of their collaboration. Critics have pointed
out that while these images made Grace an undisputed
icon, there was a dynamic where Goad treated
her as an artistic vehicle. Like she was clay
to be molded. Exactly. That he was creating his
own, as some have put it, white man's rendition
of the African feminine. It's such a complicated
legacy. Because on one hand, she looks so powerful
in those images. Terrifying and totally in control.
Absolutely. But on the other hand, she's being
literally cut up and rearranged by an artist
to fit a specific and somewhat problematic. It's
the central tension of her most iconic era. And
the sources note that this intensity, this dynamic,
eventually destroyed their personal romance.
But the work they created together, it defined
the visual landscape of the 1980s. You cannot
separate Grace Jones, the icon, from Jean -Paul
Goude's French correction. So she has the look.
She has the fame. But we haven't even really
talked about the music yet. And this is where
she really surprises people, I think. She didn't
just find one sound and stick with it. No, she
evolved constantly. Her music career really has
three very distinct phases, and it starts in
1977. She signs to Island Records and dives headfirst
into the disco craze. The disco queen era. Right.
Her first three albums, Portfolio, Fame, and
Muse, are pure, unadulterated disco. And the
big hit here, the one that broke her as a singer,
is her reinterpretation of Edith Piaf's La Vie
en Rose. Which is such a bold move, taking this
beloved French classic and turning it into a
seven -minute disco anthem. And it absolutely
worked. She became the queen of the gay discos.
Her live shows were flamboyant, highly sexualized,
legendary. But by 1979... They hit a wall. Disco's
dead. The Disco Sucks movement was in full swing.
Anti -disco sentiment was rising fast. If she
had stayed in that lane, she would have become
a relic overnight. She needed to pivot. And this
pivot is, in my opinion, one of the greatest,
most successful reinventions in pop music history.
This is where we get to the Compass Point trilogy.
Yes. She goes to Nassau in the Bahamas to the
legendary Compass Point Studios. And Chris Blackwell,
the head of Island Records, puts together a house
band for her, the Compass Point All -Stars. And
this isn't just any band. We're talking about
Sly and Robbie. We are talking about Slide on
Bar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass,
the greatest reggae rhythm section of all time,
period. Plus the French keyboardist Wally Badourou.
So what was the sound they created? What they
did was fuse new wave, post -punk, and reggae
into this slinky, dangerous, dub -heavy sound.
It's cold and robotic, but also incredibly funky.
That's such a cool sound. It's spacious. It is,
and it completely changed how she sang. In the
disco era, she was belting, you know, using her
full soprano range. But with this new sound,
she adopted this monotone speaksing style. Like
on Private Life. Exactly. She sounds detached,
almost bored, but at the same time incredibly
commanding. It's menacing. And Private Life is
a cover, right, of The Pretenders? It is. The
first album of this trilogy, a 1980s warm leatherette,
is mostly covers. The normal, Roxy music, Tom
Petty's Breakdown. But she completely deconstructs
them and makes them her own. And then comes the
masterpiece. Yeah. 1981, Night Clubbing. This
is widely considered her best studio album. Just
a perfect record from start to finish. It has
pull up to the bumper. Which has this R &B, almost
funk sound. It was actually rejected for the
previous album for being too black sounding,
believe it or not. That's what the sources say.
And it became one of her biggest hits. The album
also has, I've seen that face before, Libertango.
Oh, that song is the ultimate mood. It sounds
like a spy movie set in a Parisian cafe, all
in audio form. It really does. And visually,
the cover of Night Clubbing, a painting by Goud,
is just as important. It's her in an Armani suit,
cigarette dangling from her mouth, that iconic
flat top hair. It's gender bending. It's tough.
It's just perfect. So she's conquered music again.
She's conquered fashion. But Grace being Grace,
she decides to take this whole new persona on
the road. And not just a concert, a full on performance
piece. A one man show. Yes. This tour in 1981
was pure performance art. She wasn't just standing
at a microphone singing songs. She dressed as
a gorilla. She had these incredibly elaborate
costumes. At one point, she had multiple Grace
Jones lookalikes on stage with her. The video
version was even nominated for a Grammy. It cemented
the idea that Grace Jones wasn't a singer you
listen to. She was an experience you survived.
Survived is the right word because around this
time, Hollywood starts calling and she is terrifying
on screen. Hollywood saw this intimidating persona
and said, yes, we can use that. First up, Conan
the Destroyer in 1984. She plays Zula, the Amazonian
warrior. alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. And
honestly, she looked like she could take him
in a fight. Her physicality was just off the
charts. It was perfect for the role. And then
the big one, the role that made her a global
household name, James Bond. A view to a kill
in 1985, she plays Mayday. She is the quintessential
henchwoman. She's lifting men clean over her
head. She's base jumping off the Eiffel Tower.
She was unforgettable. And then in 1986, she
plays a vampire queen in the movie Vamp. Which
makes total sense. If anyone is an immortal vampire
queen, it's Grace Jones. Keith Haring actually
painted her body for that role, which again is
this incredible connection between high art and
pop cinema that just follows her everywhere.
So while she's doing the movie star thing, she
also releases another massive album, Slave to
the Rhythm. This is 1985, and it's a concept
album produced by the legendary Trevor Horn.
Now here's a great bit of trivia. That project
was originally intended for Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
No way. Yeah. As the follow up to their huge
hit Relax. I cannot imagine anyone else singing
that title track. Her delivery is so iconic.
It ended up with Grace and it became her signature
song. The album itself is fascinating because
it's basically just various interpretations of
that one song. Right. Interspersed with interview
clips where she's talking to the journalist Paul
Morley about her life. It's almost a documentary
set to music. And it was a huge hit for her.
But we can't talk about her media presence in
the 80s without mentioning the Russell Hardy
incident. Oh, the slap. The slap heard around
the world. It was a British chat show. Russell
Hardy was the host. And he made the mistake of
turning his back on Grace to interview the other
guests on the couch. And she, she was not having
it. She felt ignored. She felt disrespected.
And in Grace Jones's world, you do not ignore
Grace Jones. She started repeatedly slapping
him on the arm. She did. It became this legendary,
shocking TV moment, and it really reinforced
that scary, unpredictable reputation she had.
So she completely owns the 80s. Fashion, music,
film. But then the 90s come around and she sort
of vanishes. She calls them her wilderness years.
She actually vowed at one point never to do an
album again. Why? She was on top of the world.
What happened? She just hated the production
trends of the 90s. She felt that producers were,
in her words, just mincing her vocals. Mincing
them. Yeah, chopping them up, focusing on sampling.
She wanted to sing, to perform, not be a tiny
soundbite in some techno track. She had a couple
of projects, like an album called Black Marilyn
and a collaboration with Tricky called Force
of Nature, but they all got shelved or canceled.
That must have been incredibly frustrating, to
feel like the industry you helped shape had moved
to a place where your actual talent wasn't valued
anymore. It seems so, but she didn't stay gone
forever. In 2008, after nearly 20 years away
from music, she returned. With the album Hurricane.
Yes, the comeback. And this wasn't just a, you
know, here's some remixes of my old hits kind
of album. This was deeply, deeply personal. What
was the catalyst for it? She met the producer
Ivor Guest through the famous milliner Philip
Treacy. And the content of Hurricane brings us
right back to the very beginning of our story
today. How so? Well, there's a song on it called
William's Blood, and Williams was her mother's
maiden name. The song is all about her mother
and the conflict she felt with her father's religion.
It's Grace, at 60 years old, finally reckoning
with her heritage. Wow. There's also Corporate
Cannibal, which is this terrifying industrial
critique of capitalism. I love Corporate Cannibal.
The video is absolute nightmare fuel. She looks
like this morphing digital demon. It proved she
hadn't lost an ounce of her edge. And she reunited
with Sly Robbie for the album and Brian Eno.
It was a critically acclaimed triumphant return.
And she just kept proving that age is, you know,
just a number. We have to talk about the Queen's
Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Oh, yes. The Jubilee
concert. Grace is 64 years old at this point.
She comes out on this massive stage to sing Slave
to the Rhythm. And she hula hoops. The entire
time. For the entire song. Without ever dropping
it. And singing live without missing a single
breath. It was just this astonishing display
of core strength, breath control, and pure showmanship.
that people half her age couldn't dream of pulling
off. It's just showing off at that point. Yeah.
But I mean, she earned it. She certainly did.
And when you look at the modern pop landscape,
you see Grace's DNA everywhere. Lady Gaga, Rihanna,
Lorde, Annie Lennox. They all cite her as a primary
inspiration. She really wrote the blueprint for
the art pop weirdo superstar, didn't she? Absolutely.
And she's still working, still collaborating.
She was on a Gorillaz track in 2017. She featured
on Beyonce's Renaissance album in 2022. She's
not a museum piece. She's still a creative force.
Before we wrap up, I do want to clear up some
of the personal life details because the rumors
about her are almost as wild as her outfits.
Right. There are always these rumors about multiple
marriages. In her memoir, she clarifies that
she has only been married once to a man named
Attila Altande. So the rumors about being married
to her former bodyguard, Chris Stanley. She disputes
those entirely. And of course, she had the very
high profile relationships with the actor Dolph
Lundgren. She got him his role in the Bond movie.
She did. And with Jean -Paul Goude, the father
of her son. Good to set the record straight on
that. So we've gone from this strict Pentecostal
households in Jamaica where she was literally
beaten for dissent. To the runways of Paris,
the discos of New York. and the Hollywood silver
screen. It's an incredible arc. And it all comes
back to that idea of discipline. It does. She
took the trauma of her childhood, that militant
upbringing, and she flipped it. She became militantly
fabulous, militantly creative, militantly herself.
I keep thinking about that quote from Goode about
her being intimidating. It was a constructed
image for sure, but the discipline underneath
it, the steel in her spine, that was real. She
wasn't just wearing a costume. She was living
a performance 24 -7. So what does this all mean
for us? Why does Grace Jones still matter so
much today? I think she represents the ultimate
refusal to compromise. In a world where social
media encourages us all to curate these palatable,
friendly, easy to digest personas, Grace Jones
has always been jagged. She's been scary. She's
been weird. She's been impossible to define.
She reminds you that you don't have to fit neatly
in a box. In fact, you can cut the box up and
wear it as a hat. That is the perfect way to
put it. And here's a final thought to leave you
with. Grace said in her memoir, I am very militant
and disciplined, even if that sometimes means
being militantly naughty. A fantastic quote to
live by. So ask yourself this. In our world of
carefully managed brands and PR friendly stars,
is Grace Jones the last true example of a life
lived as uncompromised performance art? Is there
anyone else who could slap a TV host, hula hoop
for the queen and scare Arnold Schwarzenegger,
all while looking impeccable? I don't think so.
She is truly one of one. Thanks for joining us
on this deep dive into the wild wonderful world
of Grace Jones. We'll see you next time.