Lady Saw

In her three decades performing as Lady Saw, Marion Hall reigned supreme as dancehall’s most formidable female artist. Born in the Jamaican parish of Saint Mary in 1969, Hall learned her skills at Kingston’s sound systems before finding wider success with a run of hits that began in the early ‘90s. On thrilling songs like “Good Wuk” and “If Him Lef”, the energy and charisma in her performances more than matched the boldness of her often sexually explicit lyrics. The resulting rise in Hall’s international profile led to show-stealing appearances on hits like Vitamin C’s “Smile” in 1999 and No Doubt’s “Underneath It All” in 2001. While she kept it just as real and raw into the 2010s, she retired from dancehall in 2015 after embracing Christianity. The spiritual concerns of her gospel recordings as Minister Marion Hall may be a far cry from Lady Saw’s slackness, but her music retains its force.