It’s close to midnight, a sickle moon hangs low over the Caribbean Sea in the direction of Cuba and Grace Jones is making her way across a small suspension bridge that connects the mainland of Jamaica to an island that forms the greater part of Chris Blackwell’s GoldenEye resort. The star, one of the most enduring acts signed to Blackwell’s Island Records, has been celebrating Rafael Nadal’s quarter final victory in the Miami Open and has taken up position midway across the span like a tipsy yeoman from planet fashion.
The celebrations are going well – the neck of a bottle is clearly visible in her handbag. Perhaps Ms Jones has been nipping on a bottle of the proprietor’s latest business venture, Blackwell rum? The singer, in a green jumpsuit and a huge red hat “from Kenzo, darling, Eighties”, staggers in an act of exaggerated intoxication. “Have I tasted it? Sure, I’ve tasted it. I was the taster, darling!” The rum in question is a dark blend – “the next big thing in drinks”, I’m told – in a dark bottle with a yellowed label fixed askew to lend it some yo-ho-ho attitude.
“It says 1625 on the bottle but it’s not because we’ve been brewing since the 16th century,” Blackwell tells me. “My mother’s side have been here since the Spanish Inquisition.” Over the course of the evening, Blackwell, his aides and guests consume a fair quantity of the spirit to the sound of reggae music, and remark at the ease with which it goes down. Their plan, so far as it firmly exists, is to promote the brand in Britain (where it arrives this month) as one would an album or single. There’s talk of some events tied to the Olympics when Jamaica’s astonishing track and field team competes in London in July. Blackwell would love to use Usain Bolt as a brand ambassador, but alcohol and sports don’t mix.
Blackwell has traded in aspects of Jamaican life since he was a teenager. He’s the man who had his first hit with Millie’s My Boy Lollipopin 1964 and championed Jamaica’s greatest export, Bob Marley. At 19, he was helping out on Dr No, finding work on set for his musician friends and taking the film-makers to Laughing Waters, where the timeless sequence of Ursula Andress emerging from the sea with her shells was filmed.