2024 marks 25 years in dancehall for Spice. The blue-haired, bold dancehall icon has flown the flag for female fronted Jamaican music for a quarter of a century and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Between recording music, raising her two children and appearing as a main star on MTV’s Love & Hip-Hop, Spice, born Grace Hamilton in Spanish Town, also finds time to author books and run a clothing brand called Graci Noir.
To celebrate her silver jubilee as a recording artist, Spice joined GRM for chat about her new album Mirror 25, filming Love & Hip-Hop, the misunderstandings of dancehall culture and more.
“I think I’m most excited about the versatility that’s on the album,” says Spice who joined our Zoom after a delayed flight from Kingston to Atlanta, “It’s very diverse and because my fan base is so diverse, I’m sure that they’ll have at least one song that they’ll take away from the project. I feel like I’ve dabbled into a lot of different sounds, genres, melodies, different types of songs and new sounds that they’re going to love and appreciate.
“I’m just excited to be celebrating 25 years. That’s a long journey with my fans and it’s funny how I have 25 songs on this album that are celebrating 25 years”.
Reflecting on the changes within the genre that she has poured into for most of her life, she said, “One of the significant changes that I’ve noticed is that there’s more females in the business right now. I remember once upon a time, there wasn’t a lot. I’m excited to see the evolution because I remember days when I used to walk around with CDs in my hand, printing them just to give it out to different selectors just to let my voice be heard, just to get my songs out – to create a segment that they would dedicate to the women because there wasn’t a lot of female songs being played in Dancehall.
“I remember times that I used to go into the dancehall just to ensure that women would get played. So now that they have segments in dancehall which they call ‘gyal segment’ where it’s just straight gyal song, that’s an evolution for me because back in the days there wasn’t. I’m happy to see that growth in the music where they’re supporting women more now.”
However despite the progression, there is still a long way to go. Spice adds, “I definitely feel like female artists get critiqued more because there’s instances where other male artists would perform certain ways or be provocative in their songs but as soon as women do it, it gets labelled as, ‘oh, we’re always doing slackness’ or ‘we’re always dressed half naked, always dancing with guys on stage’ but they get to say whatever they want in their songs or perform anyway with a female onstage and it’s always looked over”.
“I definitely feel like it’s still not understood by the mass, dancehall culture to its entirety. Because, my fan base again is so diverse, when I post my performances, dancing or maybe girls dancing in Jamaica to my songs, I still get comments like, ‘what is going on? What is this? What is happening? This is like a WWE fight’ and I still see people explaining to them that this is how they dance in dancehall. So when you see girls going up in the tree, when you see girls dancing on their head top, upside down, jumping, doing flips and splits, it’s always a conversation in my comment section.”
Another big change for Spice has been being able to enjoy the fruits of her labour. Her career in music has allowed her to be able to enjoy simple luxuries that were not accessible in her childhood- “I come from humble beginnings. When I started going to school, we didn’t have enough money to pay the taxi to take me. I would walk miles to school and the cars would drive past and I always said I wanted to get a car and so when I made my first money and I bought myself a car, that gave me a level of excitement. I was really happy for that purchase, it was a silver RAV4”.
These days, what brings Spice joy is her smart fridge that loyal fans will recognise from her many social media posts – “when they introduced it to me, I was amazed. I remember walking in the store and telling the lady, I’m looking for a fridge and she was like, ‘Oh, I got the perfect one for you I know you’re into music. This one has something like an iPad on the screen’ and I’m like, ‘get out of here!’.
“Coming from Jamaica, we don’t have the liberty of having modern technology as quick as the other parts of the world so when I discovered this a few years ago, I was excited. In Jamaica, we call it ‘Frightened Friday’ and I’m like, ‘woi mi fridge can talk, it can play music! ‘and so it just became a thing of me always in my kitchen playing my music and my fans loved it”.
Spice has worked hard to draw distinctions between herself and the Spice persona/alter ego. She says, “I’m not sure if Grace can channel Spice’s energy because it’s two separate energies. I feel like the closest chance Grace gets to Spice is just before I go onstage. Once they give me that microphone, I metamorphosis into the Spice character. Once I come off stage, I go back to Grace and they’re so different in persona – Grace is very shy, Grace is very humble, just calm, she loves everyone. she’s laughing, she’s totally opposite from Spice. Spice don’t laugh, when I get the mic, I’m serious. I’m not playing no games with you, move out of my way, I’m ready to go on stage and perform to please this crowd.
“When I get off stage, the laughter comes back, the Grace Hamilton comes, the person that is just laughing, loving on her fans, loving everyone and just back to being that normal little shy girl – it’s two different personas completely.”
An open book on social media, Spice had some reservations about joining the cast of Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta but committed to the series in 2018 and has been a main cast member since – “I split my time between Jamaica and Atlanta. I still live in Jamaica but I work in Atlanta because I’m filming most of the time,” she explains, “I would say it’s extremely hard because being on reality TV, your life becomes an open book, cameras are there 24/7 and they want to know everything. You’re on a reality show where you sign up to share everything and I feel like sometimes it’s difficult because sometimes I don’t even want things on camera but you’ve got to live your life, it’s what you signed up for.
“I thought about it when I was becoming a cast member, but because I’m such an open book with my fans, I never thought that it would disturb me at all because I never normally hide anything from my fans, I’m very open with them, which is why I call them besties because to me, they’re like my best friend. I’m really literally sharing my entire life with them. I am who I am, what they see is what they get. I don’t put on and try to be somebody else. So, they already know me. So, when I was going on reality TV, I thought about all of that and I was like, ‘I already live an open life. I already tell them everything. I’m always on live sharing my business!’ but with reality TV, the only difference is you don’t have control over how it gets edited and so at times you’re filming for an entire year and (viewers) just start watching you every Monday and it’s whatever they edit and however they choose to place it and put it – you don’t have control over how the show gets edited or presented to the world”.
Spice has been very open both on Love & Hip-Hop and on social media about feuds with friends, industry fallouts and her journey as a single mother to son and daughter, Nicholas and Nicholatoy – “My advice for a single mother would be, I know it’s hard, I know it’s not easy, but always remember that you could possibly be raising the next prime minister or the next president and as long as you realize that you have the future in your hands, then it will always push you to take proper care of that future that you’re creating, that you’re raising.”
The last series saw Spice mend friendships after fall outs with fellow cast members such as Karli Redd. Spice would then have to explain herself further via social media after fans waded in after watching the episodes.
“Sometimes (people) are like, ‘oh my God, every day Spice is this or that’ and it’s like, ‘no, it was a year ago!’ Old wounds… I wish it was just shown live and then we could move on. I have to revisit it and then I have to tell my fans, ‘no, that was last year’.
Alluding to the drama of the last series, Spice says, “I feel like one of the Leo traits I embody the most is my loyalty. I feel like Leo’s are very loyal people. I think my loyalty also gets me in trouble with friends because when things happen, because I wouldn’t do it, it hurts me more because there are situations that I find myself in and I’m like, ‘why would she, why would a friend do that?’ I just can’t understand it because I would never do it. It makes me a harder critic when something happens and a friend does something. It’s very hard for me because of how loyal I am to that friend.
“Some of the girls here in Atlanta… we have different beliefs, we have different culture, we have different upbringings. So a lot of things that they look at as nothing, it’s a very big thing to me. (Loyalty) did have a lot to do with my last season on Love and Hip Hop when I felt betrayed.”
The series touched on Spice’s scary recent health troubles once again as she dealt with the aftermath of surgeries. When news of Spice’s hospitalisation broke, it went viral with blogs and commenters speculating on her prognosis.
“I was frustrated with people who knew me,” she explains, “I remember being in the hospital and them just mentioning media houses and people who were just digging for information while I was there fighting for my life. They just wanted to know what happened and how it happened. At the time, I was just like “wow,” because I was dying at that time. People had no sentiments to a situation, they just wanted information.
“This why I only wear blue at the moment. People don’t understand it but I remember coming on the internet, I saw that people were posting blue hearts and their pages were blue, everything was just blue for me and I was like, wow, this blue trend that I started is a very powerful thing because it just gave me so much hope and inspiration to fight. It cheered me up when I saw it. It really means a lot to me to have the fanbase that I have because throughout it all, they were just really there for me. I’m only here by the grace of God – Jesus was just right beside me throughout my experience and I’m happy to be able to say I escaped death. I don’t take that line lightly at all. I’m very, very grateful.”
Just wrapping up a performance at Popcaan’s Unruly Fest in London last month, Spice is no stranger to the UK – “I think one of the things that is unique about the UK crowd is that you still feel like you’re in Jamaica because there’s a lot of Jamaicans there. So being in a foreign country and still being able to relate to the people because you have supporters from your country and they still know the songs, that makes it very unique for me and I enjoy the fact that I can speak like them – a likkle British. When I do that and they’re shocked and can’t believe it, I have to remind them that this is my second home and I used to live here.”
Spice spent some years here as a child living in Finsbury Park with her grandparents. She attended school here, made friends and sang in church – “I tell people all the time that I’m a very well raised little girl. I grew up in church and then something happened along the way – Dancehall introduced me to slackness”.
“It was a huge culture shock for me,” says Spice on her arrival to London, “when I came here I left out of school and just came to a country that I had no knowledge on and had never been to before. My first time going on a plane and I end up in this world that seemed crazy to me because here I am as a little girl coming out of Jamaica where it’s boiling hot and then I appear in this country where I can’t go outside without putting on jackets and layers of clothes!
“Imagine the culture shock that I was getting. One of my greatest memories coming into the UK is seeing that big red bus because in Jamaica we do not have an upstairs and downstairs bus. One of my greatest memories is seeing that bus pass me by and just running to my grandfather and saying, ‘Granddad, Granddad, oh my god, they’ve got two buses driving together. They’ve got two buses on each other!’ and that excitement of seeing stuff like that as a little girl, it was one of my greatest memories coming into England.
“I couldn’t go outside and play again with my bare feet with kids on the streets, riding a bike… everything just changed and I remember just wanting to back to Jamaica because I wasn’t used to it but now England is a second home for me. It’s one of my favourite places in the world.”
On her favourite things about the UK, she says, “I love the shopping. The fashion there is always different. I miss the train rides. I love going on the trains. Even when I come now, my friends have to take me on the Piccadilly line because it’s so fast and I’m able to just get on it and reach somewhere quickly. I enjoy that.”
With the first episode of Love & Hip-Hop’s twelfth season airing its first episode at the ending of last month, Spice explains that her storyline will be focused on music this time around.
Spice told GRM, “I’m producing a Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta cast album and I’m the executive producer. On this album, it’s one riddim where everybody is going to be delivering. Throughout the season, everybody is acting confused like, ‘Spice, what are you doing? We’ve never heard it’ and I’m like, ‘listen, this is how we do it in Jamaica. We call it a juggling where everybody goes on the same beat and here in America, they’re like, ‘we’ve never heard that. We don’t know what you’re doing’ and it’s fun because that’s the entire season. The season is about this cast album that I’m producing.”
On juggling and riddim culture that has been making a reemergence in dancehall with recent successes of the Big Bunx and Dutty Money riddim to name a few, Spice says, “It’s very exciting,” and adds, “I used to have fun with knowing that one song would lead to the next. It was easier for selectors to play a song and a riddim if it was a juggling because it was easy to mix and so when everybody started doing singles, it took away from that moment where you could hear everybody being played on the song.”
To end our chat and in reference to the album’s title, I asked Spice to detail who she sees when she looks in the mirror, to which the Grammy nominated artist replied – “I see a beautiful strong black woman, I see a prize. I see a black hero, I see black royalty looking back at me.”
Stream Mirror 25 featuring “Round Round” with Busta Rhymes and more from the Queen of Dancehall below.