Meet Spice, the Jamaican queen of dancehall undergoing her own musical revolution

Lately, every day has been a thrill for Spice. Jamaica’s very own dancehall queen celebrated her birthday, finished up an international tour and wrapped filming a season of the VH1 reality show Love & Hip Hop. For Spice, aka Grace Hamilton, her unadulterated joy has been hard-won. But thanks to a new partnership with United Masters and Stealth Music Group — and the release of her new album Emancipated — Spice finally feels free.

“I was under VP Records for over 10 years, and there was a battle for me to get out. I’m finally emancipated,” Spice says of the album over Zoom from her home in Jamaica. For Spice, Emancipated is about her legacy. “My fans have been journeying with me for over a decade. This is not just a project but something that is me — authentic dancehall music,” she explains.

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Getting to know Spice through her Caribbean sound is like being thwacked in the eardrums by a slam-dancing assortment of electronic instruments and sonic jolts. In Spice’s “Clap Clap” music video — the opening track on Emancipated — dancers move seamlessly through traditional Jamaican dancehall moves like daggering, the bogle and even some freestyled creations. “Jamaica has so many different dances,” Spice laughs, combing her lengthy acrylic nails through her lavender hair. “We take everything and make a dance out of it.” Right now, she says, there’s a new dance called “breadfruit,” where locals buckle their knees together and move their hips left to right, calling in other dance partners.

The movement in Spice’s latest video isn’t far off from the energy she flaunts on global stages in front of thousands of gyrating fans. Flying from Tobago, Jamaica to the East Coast leg of her 10 tour, Spice — in a pearlescent bodysuit — performed with superwoman stamina at an outdoor arena in the pouring rain while attendees thrust their umbrellas in the sky. “I was in the mud with them jumping in the water!” the St. Catherine-raised singer exclaims. That energy explodes when she’s facing a crowd. “Sometimes it’s as if I metamorphosis into a different character or persona because I sometimes don’t know that person onstage,” she adds.

Although Spice has always been in love with entertaining, the singer admits she and her five siblings came from “humble beginnings.” Her heated affinity for music was triggered by her dad — it’s what bonded them. And before Spice’s father passed away when she was 9 years old, she enjoyed watching him sing and dance in his spare time. In a “Rasta” (Christian-converted) household, Spice was exposed to an array of Caribbean and spiritual music, and her dad’s fondness for local favorites like Bob Marley and Dennis Brown influenced her. By 17, Spice affirmed that she was a natural-born performer who would always have all eyes on her. “Everything started for me because I used to turn our education into songs,” she says. “People used to come to me to learn the songs. I used to knock on the school benches, and I got popular. Then, someone introduced me to a man who had a festival in Jamaica called Sting.” 

With serendipity at her door, Spice tackled her first onstage performance at Sting in 2011 in her hometown of Portmore, St. Catherine. The multiple encores following her set sparked the beginnings of an early, devoted fanbase. Two decades later, she’s seen it all come full circle performing around the world. “Being on tour now is a humbling experience for me,” she remarks. “I go to so many different countries where fans come backstage to speak to me and need a translator because they don’t speak English. For me, that is mind-blowing because you speak Spanish or you speak French, and you’re singing my songs word for word. How is that even possible?”

[Photo by Spex Photography]

That’s why Emancipated, Spice’s first album as an independent artist, feels so meaningful. It’s representative of how far she’s come as an artist — one who has never forgotten where she’s come from. For Spice, Emancipated is a safe space that returns to the artistic freedom of her roots and homes in on the cultural spectacle of dancehall music. “Bake A Man” is a satirical old-school dancehall club banger that’s the soul of Spice’s album, showing how she hasn’t steered far from her Caribbean heritage. She experiments with her voice more as well, from bigger-sounding vocals to accentuated pronunciation and speed, which can be heard on the tropical party ballad “Same Mouth.” “Tape Measure” and “Pop Off” blend trap with dancehall, giving each track a firing beat drop. The album’s nine tracks boast Spice’s versatility as she continues to claim the throne as dancehall queen. She refrains from using Jamaican Patwa (a type of slang) to deliver a more “standard English” album so more people globally can comprehend her lyrics. Ultimately, Spice’s Emancipated breathes an unexplored progressive spirit of dancehall that’s still conducive to heated breakdancing anytime, anywhere; onsetting a renewed era of the veteran genre.

But Spice’s takeover has been a long time coming, with star power behind her. It was only last year that she made history as the first true female dancehall artist to be nominated for Best Reggae Album for 2020’s Grammys with her debut LP, 10. That nomination helped instill the conviction she now has as an independent artist. Moving forward, Spice hopes Emancipated will help others see how she’s leading the future of dancehall music. “If you are a fan of old-school dancehall, there’s going to be a song on Emancipated for you, and if you are a new fan of dancehall, there is definitely going to be a sound on [Spice’s album] for you as well,” she says. In Spice’s world, everyone is welcome as long as you dance to the riddim of the beat.