The model who walked out of Paris fashion and into a new-wave sound

Grace Jones was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 1948. Her father was a local politician and Apostolic clergyman who later became a Pentecostal minister in the United States, and the children were left with their grandmother. She was raised in the family's Pentecostal faith, with prayer meetings and Bible readings every night, and she has described a strict, abusive stepgrandfather she knew as “Mas P”.

Her first career was modelling. She signed with Wilhelmina Models in New York, then moved to Paris and worked for houses such as Yves St. Laurent and Kenzo, appeared on the covers of Elle and Vogue Hommes, and was photographed by Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Hans Feurer. She emerged as one of the most prominent Black models of the 1970s, known for an androgynous appearance that has been cited as influential in early discussions of gender expression.

In 1977 she began a music career with Island Records and became associated with the disco scene around New York's Studio 54, where media called her the “Disco Queen”. In the early 1980s she moved toward a new-wave style that drew on reggae, funk, post-punk and pop, often working with graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude and the duo Sly & Robbie. Her albums include Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981), and Slave to the Rhythm (1985), and a track like “Nipple To The Bottle” shows that edge.

Her UK Top 40 entries include “Private Life”, “Pull Up to the Bumper”, “Love Is the Drug” and “Slave to the Rhythm”. She also acted, first as Zula in Conan the Destroyer in 1984, then as May Day in the Bond film A View to a Kill in 1985 and as a vampire in Vamp. Later she worked with Gorillaz and Janelle Monáe and earned another Grammy nomination for her work on Beyoncé's Renaissance. In 2025 she received the Kennedy Center Honor.