Spice

Spice was born Grace Latoya Hamilton on August 6, 1982, in St. Catherine, Jamaica. She began performing as a member of her church choir before entering Jamaica's fiercely competitive dancehall scene in the early 2000s.

Her first major national breakthrough came via her sexually explicit 2009 duet with Vybz Kartel, "Romping Shop," which Jamaica's Broadcasting Commission banned from domestic radio and television, yet which crossed over internationally, spending 15 weeks on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, positioning her as dancehall's most provocative rising female voice of that era.

She signed with VP Records and released her debut EP, So Mi Like It, in 2014. In 2018, she joined the cast of VH1's Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, using the platform to document her career, including her 2021 debut studio album, 10, which earned her a nomination for Best Reggae Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards — making her the first hardcore female dancehall deejay nominated in the category. Her 2018 single "Black Hypocrisy" confronted colorism within Black communities and became one of her most culturally significant releases. In 2022 she suffered a serious sepsis-related health crisis requiring seven surgeries over two years; she channeled the experience into her 2024 album Mirror 25, marking 25 years in the industry, which debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Reggae Albums chart.

Spice is widely regarded as the most prominent and commercially successful female dancehall artist of her generation, having sustained a multi-decade career that helped open doors for other women in a genre historically dominated by men. As of early 2026 she remains active, having released the gospel-inflected single "God Don't Play About Me" in January 2026 as part of a newly reflective, faith-oriented creative period following her health scare.