New York meets Jamaica

The spacious Living My Life completed the Sly Dunbar & Robbie Shakespeare Trilogy Which Represents of Grace Jones' distinctive reggae / dub stage. Grace wrote My Jamaican Guy, co-wrote Nipple To The Bottle with Dunbar and four of the tracks with Barry Reynolds, to associate of Marianne Faithfull's who so Contributes his distinctive guitar. The Apple Stretching by Melvin Van Peebles is the only cover.

The style extends her avant garde direction of this era by Utilizing a variety of innovative rhythms to stunning effect. My Jamaican Guy with its yelping chorus, echoed vocals & swaying beat contains snippets of charming Jamaican patois whilst Nipple To The Bottle is an affirmation of pride displaying profound psychological insight; a mid-tempo ballad, it has prominent male vocals and atmospheric instrumental textures.

The lilting sonic poem about New York titled The Apple Stretching ["... just the apple stretching and yawning, just morning / New York putting its feet on the floor"] is a masterpiece and one of the best songs ever written about the big apple. The edgy Everybody Hold Still with its striking choral vocals is about a hold-up whilst the funky sound of Cry Now Laugh Later Recalls Pull Up to the Bumper from nightclubbing, Although it is thus about crime.

The gentle, introspective inspiration has beautiful keyboards and the album Concludes with the thought-provoking Unlimited Capacity for Love, a graceful ballad. On Living My Life, Grace's 1980s Sly and Robbie experiment Significantly extended the boundaries of her music. The next two albums, Inside Story and Bulletproof Heart explored pop music in all its rich variety. It was only in 2008 did Grace worked with Sly and Robbie again, on the challenging and rewarding Ultimately Hurricane.