Grace Jones Criticizes ‘Middle of the Road’ Pop Stars Beyoncé, Rihanna, Nicki, Miley in Memoir Excerpt
Photo by Erez Avissar
On September 29, Grace Jones is releasing her memoir I’ll Never Write My Memoirs. A new excerpt of the book published in Time Out shows Jones criticizing some of the biggest pop stars in the world.
The excerpt begins with Jones saying that she’s “never comfortable in the middle of the stream, flowing in the same direction as everyone else” and says her instinct is “to resist the pull of the obvious”. She also writes of her experience being copied by several major stars.
Trends come along and people say, ‘Follow that trend’. There’s a lot of that around at the moment: ‘Be like Sasha Fierce. Be like Miley Cyrus. Be like Rihanna. Be like Lady Gaga. Be like Rita Ora and Sia. Be like Madonna.’ I cannot be like them – except to the extent that they are already being like me.
Jones writes that she was offered to collaborate with an unnamed singer “on the list of those who came after me,” but declined despite those around her insisting it would be good for her career. “No! It will be good for her; she will draw from everything I have built and add it to her brand, and I will get nothing back except for a little temporary attention.”
This led to her discussion that “the Nicki Minajes and Mileys” of the pop world have “no long-term vision.”
…They forget that once you get into that whirlpool then you have to fight the system that solidifies around you in order to keep being the outsider you claim you represent. There will always be a replacement coming along very soon—a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven’t got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday’s event.
They dress up as though they are challenging the status quo, but by now, wearing those clothes, pulling those faces, revealing those tattoos and breasts, singing to those fractured, spastic, melting beats – that is the status quo. You are not off the beaten track, pushing through the thorny undergrowth, finding treasure no one has come across before. You are in the middle of the road.
She ends the piece by saying that she’s a teacher and naming a few of her pupils: Kanye West, FKA twigs, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Annie Lennox, Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Cyrus.
Recent Comments