Inside Dancehall Artist and ‘Love and Hip-Hop’ Star Spice’s Battle To Get Out of Her Label Contract
After a protracted delay led to the singer releasing a charting mixtape without her label's blessing, the dispute between Spice and VP Records has spilled out into the open.
On Oct. 22, in Kingston, Jamaican dancehall artist Spice, who also stars on VH1’s Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta, debuted a few tracks from a new mixtape. One of those she performed live was “Black Hypocrisy,” a song written about the prejudice she has experienced from other black people as a dark-skinned black woman. To underscore the song’s focus on the taboo topic of colorism, Spice, who streamed the performance live, altered her appearance to a near-white complexion and posted a photo of herself with porcelain skin, blonde hair and steely blue contact lenses, which sent her online viewers into a tumult.
The “Black Hypocrisy” video, released the following day, racked up over 2 million views in less than 48 hours. It now has nearly 3.7 million views.
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Two months later, the uproar surrounding Spice’s lightened complexion during the performance has subsided, with her fans and colleagues relieved that the confident, beautiful artist hadn’t bleached her skin but, instead, pulled off a brilliant marketing stunt with the help of a skilled makeup team. However, another song on Spice’s mixtape details an ongoing controversy, which could have further-reaching implications for the artist and, perhaps, the wider dancehall/reggae industry.
“Captured,” the mixtape’s title track, recounts a soured relationship from which the singer cannot break free. Written as a ballad, Spice’s haunting vocals on “Captured” lament the time she gave to the union: “365 days in a year, multiply that by 10, now this is not fair/You buried my dreams, my entire career/’Cause I gave you my heart, but you did not care.” The object of Spice’s scorn isn’t a neglectful lover or derelict husband: it’s VP Records, the Queens, New York-based reggae independent, with which she signed in 2009.
In an interview at Kingston’s SR Music/Entertainment Factory where Spice was rehearsing for the following day’s Captured launch, the 36-year-old artist, born Grace Hamilton, told Billboard that she signed a “three or five album deal” with VP Records. VP released Spice’s So Mi Like It EP in 2014; in 2018, Spice became the first female Jamaican artist to rack up 80 million views for the “So Mi Like It” video. However, an album has yet to follow, which has prompted Spice’s rancor.
“VP told me, ‘We’re working on your album, we’re going to release it,’ so I told my fans, ‘My album is dropping’; then, when it didn’t happen, I told VP I am going to get a lawyer,” she explains. “Then they said, ‘Okay, we’ll drop the album this year,’ and they recorded a few songs with me to make me feel like I am actually working on the album. I would tell my fans, again, ‘My album is coming,’ and then it deteriorates to nothing.”
Spice sent a statement to VP through her lawyer asking to be released from her contract. “VP wrote me back, saying that they don’t want to release me from my contract, but they still don’t want to put my album out, so that’s why I called my mixtape Captured,” adds Spice. Spice emphasizes that she wrote and produced the majority of Captured’s 19 tracks in less than a month. Released on Nov. 2 on her Spice Official Entertainment label with distribution by 21st Hapilos Digital, Captured debuted atop the U.S. Top Reggae Albums Chart and reached no. 9 on the U.S. Top Heatseekers – Middle Atlantic tally.
Record deals are accompanied by pressure to make hit songs/albums and release schedules that may not always be to an artist’s liking. And contractual stipulations that might have been acceptable when the artist was relatively unknown and had little bargaining power can become the source of resentment when said artist has attained success yet remains tied to outdated terms. Further, if a label doesn’t think an artist can deliver to their expectations in the marketplace, the company usually have the option to do nothing at all, which can lock artists into contracts with years of inactivity — the actual manifestation of being “shelved.”
“Record label contracts vary from artist to artist and company to company, so I always recommend that artists request labels to commit in writing to a commercial release within a specified period of time,” offers Kwasi Bonsu, an entertainment attorney and CEO/founder of the Jamaica Music Conference. “Commonly used language is ‘a commercially acceptable recording that shall be released in the normal channel of distribution;’ a period from one to three years is reasonable.” Bonsu, who has not seen Spice’s contract with VP Records, adds, “An artist should have their attorney clarify the term ‘commercially acceptable.’ The ability of an artist and their attorney to negotiate this term will depend on their leverage going into the agreement.”
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When Spice signed with VP Records, her best-known recording was a 2009 collaboration with Vybz Kartel, the explicit “Rampin’ Shop,” which reached no. 76 on Billboard‘s R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. However, Spice’s ability to spit lyrics had attracted attention long before that controversial single’s release.
“I first heard Spice at Sting [Jamaica’s now-defunct dancehall concert extravaganza held for 32 years on Dec. 26] around 2000,” says Neil “Diamond” Edwards, senior director of A&R at VP, who signed Spice to the label. “She was standing in the middle of the stage, her performance was more lyrical than it is now, she had 30,000 people cheering for her and I thought, she’s wicked!”
Over the years, Spice developed a dynamic, bawdy stage show featuring three back up dancers and raucous engagement with her audience, which keeps her in demand for dates throughout Europe, the U.S. and the Caribbean. Spice’s avant-garde, risqué style, complemented by an assortment of vividly-hued wigs, has also put her at the forefront of dancehall fashion. She further expresses her creativity as a video director; in one of her most ingenious visuals, “Like A Man,” she wears a suit, dons a faux mustache, puffs a cigar and adopts a male voice to address sexism within the dancehall business.
In March 2018, Spice joined the cast of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, making her the first Jamaican artist to have a recurring role on an American TV series. For her tireless work ethic, trailblazing accomplishments and overall popularity, Spice has deservedly been crowned dancehall reggae’s reigning queen, a distinction that would seemingly provide an ideal context for VP Records to further promote her music. Spice, however, maintains she has not heard anything from her label, before or after joining the Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta cast.
“There’s no communication,” she says. “They haven’t reached out to say we see what you are doing, let us add to it. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t want to add to what I am doing, because I am already doing everything for myself.”
Spice initially vented her frustration towards VP through Instagram posts in mid-2018; since the release of Captured, she’s commented on the situation in various print and radio interviews. VP Records, however, has remained silent on the topic except for issuing two brief statements acknowledging Spice’s objections and a forthcoming album from the artist. Billboard initially reached out to VP for an interview related to Spice in November; a few weeks later, VP agreed to talk and on Dec. 19, four VP Records executives met with Billboard at their offices in Jamaica, Queens.
VP Records’ senior director of business affairs John McQueeney declined to comment on or clarify the status of her deal, and would not say if Spice violated her contract by releasing Captured, nor if VP has made contact with or is taking legal action against distributor 21st Hapilos Digital. Likewise, 21st Hapilos Digital’s business coordinator Malaika Lepine sent an email to Billboard stating, “Hapilos declines to answer any questions with regards to Spice and VP Records’ ongoing legal battle.”
Spice says the songs she has recorded for her VP album were done three years ago, “So it wouldn’t make sense to drop an album with them when I have so many current songs on this mixtape.” Nonetheless, Aaron Talbert, vice president sales and marketing at VP Records, says the label hopes to release Spice’s album “as soon as possible. 2019 is our 40th anniversary; we would love to have Spice be a part of that and summer would be our optimum time for her album’s release … I think it’s worth saying that the 19 songs on Spice’s mixtape could have been part of her album, so that’s a headscratcher for me as we work towards completing and getting her album out.”
When asked to comment on Spice’s allegation that she hasn’t heard from VP since joining the cast of Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta, Talbert said, “It doesn’t serve us to ignore an artist, especially when things are going on for them, so why would we?” Edwards, who attended Spice’s Manhattan launch party for Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta last March, added, “Spice knows the tracks she recorded had samples that needed to be cleared, so there was communication up to that point. But I get that as an artist who’s out there doing things, she became very frustrated and the communication wasn’t that strong. So in her mind it was like, ‘These songs aren’t ready, so I am moving on.'”
“Our focus right now,” added Randy Chin, president of VP Records, “Is trying to complete her album. We are in a creative process, the time frame isn’t linear, so we just want to get the album done and start the promotions for it.”
With the release of Captured, Spice has not only earned thousands of new fans, but her outspokenness regarding her record label row may inspire her colleagues to become more circumspect in their business dealings.
“There is a reputational issue for Spice and VP here; historical studies on the Jamaican music industry point to international and local perception of reggae and dancehall artists as being reluctant to honor contracts, but those perceptions largely stem from a history of contracts being misused to the disadvantage of the artist,” says Kim-Marie Spence, former head of the Creative Industries for Jamaica’s Trade and Investment agency (JAMPRO). “I hope Spice’s situation can inspire a re-think of the business model regarding Jamaican artists who have to manage local relevance and international marketability in a way, say, hip-hop artists do not. Perhaps more investment in the Jamaican space by labels and other boutique outfits that are signing reggae and dancehall artists in ways that recognize the artists’ need to remain relevant in Jamaica can help bridge the divide that has existed from Bob Marley‘s time until now.”
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