From Patra to Lady Saw, Beenie Man to Shabba Ranks, the Jamaican Dancehall scene has given birth to artists whose work, though widely influential in diasporic sub-cultures, have often gone overlooked and undervalued in the mainstream.
Their highly innovative looks, sounds and artistic statements mimicked and exploited to inject flavour and charisma into otherwise bland Pop stars.
Today, superstar Spice is determined to celebrate the scene’s contributions to culture.
And she’s already made ample headway with her globally renown bops such as ‘So Mi Like It’ and ‘Cool It.’
How she intends to do it the more?
Watch her insightful conversation with Red Bull to hear her thoughts on the above and more….below.
On colourism:
“In Jamaica, they make you feel like if you don’t have that complexion that’s on the screen, you’re not popping, you’re not hot… if you stay as a dark skinned black woman then you are [made to] feel inferior.”
She hopes to win a Grammy:
“I want to win the Grammys. I want to do, like you know, what no other female from Jamaica has done. Bob Marley did it for reggae, I want to do it for females in Dancehall.”
On trolls? She had this to say:
“All my life colorism has affected me. To this day it might have lessened since the song but you know I remember even two years ago you’d post a picture and the comments would be ‘Spice you can bleach your dark skin’, ‘Spice you have too much money to stay Black’.”
Her Dancehall sibling Alicai Harley was around to pay her this compliment :
“Spice represents power, bravery, being unapologetically sexy. She’s battled with colorism. She’s touched on black hypocrisy. And at the same time she’s given us amazing music.”
The conversation was filmed at Subterania in West London.