Spice is referred to as the Queen of Dancehall, but she may additionally be queen of the comeback. The Jamaican singer and reality star, whose real name is Grace Hamilton, overcame childhood traumas including the death of her dad, the lack of her family home and, most recently, a remarkable recovery from a near-death experience.
“Growing up in Jamaica was hard for me,” she told me on this week’s “Renaissance Man.” “I got here from humble beginnings. My slogan is ‘From homeless to greatness.’”
Spice implies that literally. “Once I was younger, I got here home, my house was gone. I lost my home to fireplace,” she said. “I mainly lost all the things. I only had one pair of shoes and a uniform that I went to highschool with that day. That was all I used to be left with.”
Afterward, Spice and her family moved around, and he or she even had a transient stint living in London along with her grandfather.
The turbulence, she said, “shaped me into the strong individual that I’m, because oftentimes, even now in my adult life, I’ve got to ensure that I do know the right way to make these noes into yeses … I’m self-made, so I don’t have a management team or anyone. I’m doing this as an independent woman straight away.”
She’s also grateful for the push she got from her late father, who recognized her musical talent early on.
“My father died after I was only 9 years old,” she said. “He’s the rationale I’m in music, because I remember before he died, he used to play Bob Marley in the home … He used to inform us to sing the songs and he would give us extra food on the plate. And I used to like my belly, so I used to sing for food.”
Her father was so dazzled by her voice, he’d tell everyone she was going to be a star. He was right. She’d go on to collaborate with dancehall artists like Sean Paul and Shaggy. In 2018, her mixtape “Captured” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s reggae album chart, and he or she got her first Grammy nomination in 2021.
Spice said of her father, “I remember him just speaking life into me.”
“He was very boastful about me to his friends. Like, in all places he would take me, he can be [like], ‘My daughter can sing,’” she said, describing how she absorbed his confidence, even at a young age. As a tween, she began making waves in dancehall when legendary lyricist within the genre Bounty Killer pulled her up onstage. She was only 14.
“I feel like that was my moment … I began to speak lyrics and we began to go backwards and forwards … And [Bounty Killer] checked out me and he said to me, ‘You will be the following queen of dance.’”
The legend of Spice was born. From there, she began battling with other artists, lots of whom were grown men. After becoming a bona fide dancehall star, she crossed over into the fact realm, guest-starring on “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta” in 2017. Producers were taken with adding her to the forged, but there was one issue.
“They were like, ‘You’re from Jamaica. How are you going to film?’” she recalled producers asking. Despite not knowing much about Atlanta, she told them she had already moved there. But, “I used to be staying in a hotel until I figured it out. So, I mean, that’s the one lie I told in that interview.”
It seems Spice at all times figures it out and comes out on top. In November, she nearly lost her life to sepsis. “It began eating my organs. It attacked my lungs. I couldn’t breathe alone,” she said. Spice miraculously pulled through, and the ordeal modified her as a human.
“I literally was given a second likelihood to life, and I check with my current life as my second life,” she said. “I’m more humble, I’m more forgiving. I even have a calmer spirit.”
“I remember things that used to hassle me in my first life,” she added, and “it doesn’t hassle me now in my second life. The little things that I used to take without any consideration, I now not take it without any consideration.”
