Embodying an Icon | “Grace Jones” by maassai
February 22, 2021
This song is a joint effort between two up and coming artists, Brooklyn-based rapper maassai and South Carolina-based producer Contour. Grace Jones, the Jamaican singer and songwriter, perhaps best known for her record Nightclubbing, helped to redefine both fashion and dance music during the 1970s and 80s. In this song, maassai calls on the listener to embody the spirit of Grace Jones in order to impose radical social change and to uproot the status quo.
Sonically, the beat is simple, but it acts as a sort of canvas that maassai paints with her lyrics. It is short, but much like her previous releases, she fills the roughly two-minute runtime with a dense packing of multi-tracked vocals. Multiple listens open up the opportunity for multiple interpretations.
I highly recommend checking this song and the rest of the record out. Coming in at only 17 minutes long, it breezes by, but the potential displayed here is so exciting.