Keeping up with the Joneses

Back in 2009, I was rummaging through a Virgin Megastore in Union Square, New York (remember those humungous outlets?) – thumbing through the Joneses section (yep, a full section dedicated to artists of that surname) when I spotted the diva’s then-latest single Corporate Cannibal. The track kicked off with the lyric “Pleased to meet you; pleased to have you on my plate”, then moved into more fiendish fare such as “You’re my life support; your life is my sport” and “I’m a man-eating machine; I’m a man, a man… eating machine”.

It’s all utterly Grace Jones: arrogant, obnoxious, in-your-face, intimidating, yet altogether sexy.

Grace is glossy and vampiric, shamelessly seductive and increasingly insistent. In her music videos, she is electronic pulse and primitive being all wrapped in one, rhetorically demanding; physically overwhelming.

This is why it was with trepidation that I flipped over the first few pages of her freshly-printed memoirs, ironically titled I’ll Never Write My Memoirs. Where I thought I’d be dwindled to mere maggot status within the first few pages (you, the simple reader; I, Grace Jones) instead I was greeted by a subtler, gentler creature.

The woman pens prose on paper as poetically as she does lyrics to music, but when applying writing to her life in general Grace Jones is much more relatable; far less fierce. That’s not to say there isn’t tough stuff in these pages. I’ll Never Write My Memoirs does highlight certain behind-the-scenes shenanigans that make the music industry what it is (or rather, what it was since today’s music scene pales in comparison to yesteryear’s coke-addled parties) and it’s here that things get truly spooky/scary and Grace-like.

What’s also interesting is the way Grace kicks off with and regularly refers back to her rigorously disciplined past. If she’s not talking about the strict religious history in her family, she’s referring to her Jamaican roots, living in Spanish Town, a place bordered by churches and a certain angst toward a supposedly all-seeing God.

From the diva’s move to Paris in 1970 where she commenced modelling, through her halcyon days in music in the 1980s, to delivering some of the best live performances this writer has seen in his entire music-reviewing career this decade, Grace Jones was, is, and always will be a force to be reckoned with.

The woman shows no signs of letting up nor letting fans down. And I hope that at 70 years of age, I’ll catch her on some stage doing her cabaret best. Her first autobiography (actually written by – or “told to” – Paul Morley, hence she didn’t write her own memoirs, after all) is testament to only a smidgen of the icon’s infinite boldness and brilliance. Still, it encapsulates a lot of her spunk.

There is another line in Corporate Cannibal that rings true about Ms Jones. “I’ll consume my consumers with no sense of humour,” she hisses. “I’ll give you uniform, chloroform, I’ll sanitize, homogenize, vaporize you.” Her Americanized Zs are razor-sharp, but somehow you get the sense there’s a soft spot in the heart of this Amazonian tour de force; this “Grandmaster of Fear” (to quote her own description of herself).

Oh heck, who am I kidding? The woman’s downright terrifying by the time you’re halfway through this autobiography. Read it and weep.  Antonino Tati

I’ll Never Write My Memoirs by Grace Jones is published by Simon & Schuster, RRP $39.00 in hardback, $16.99 in eBook.