Lady Saw

Marion Hall, born on 12 July 1972 in Galina, St. Mary, Jamaica, is a singer-songwriter whose career has spanned over two decades. She is well-known as Queen of Dancehall and was the first female deejay to be certified as a Grammy Award-winning artist and triple-platinum. She started performing with local sound systems at 15 years old and also worked with the Stereo One system in Kingston. Hall’s music was influenced by famous Jamaican singer Tenor Saw and in 1987, Hall took the name “Lady Saw”. Record producers saw her performances and she recorded her first single “Love Me or Lef Me” for producer Piper, and Producer Olive Shaw facilitated significant airplay. She topped the Jamaican charts with “Find a Good Man.” Lady Saw recorded her first studio album in August 1994 and Lover Girl was released. The album had the hit “Stab Up De Meat.” Give Me The Reason was her 2nd album release in 1996 and had explicit sex lyrics. Popular songs included “Life Without Dick” and Saw released Passion in 1997, it was her ground-breaking album to chart at number 8 on Billboard’s Top Reggae Albums chart. In 1998, her debut greatest hits album was released, Raw. The Best of Lady Saw was her 3rd album and her fourth album 99 Ways. It was in the 10th position on Billboard’s Top Reggae Albums chart that same year. In 1999, she went international with “Smile”, recorded with Vitamin C, which hit number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was a major hit in Canada and New Zealand and certified gold with over 500,000 sales. Her collaboration in 2002 with No Doubt, “Underneath It All” was three in the US and reaching triple platinum certification after selling more than three million copies. The track won ‘Best Performance by a Duo or Group’ at the Grammy Awards. 2004-2007, she released her 5th and 6th albums. 2009-2015 saw releases of 3 albums and she got her own Diva Records label. She changed her genre and decided to go for Gospel and from 2016 she has since released many singles as Minister Marion Hall, no longer Lady Saw. She released 2 albums in 2016 and in 2018. Hall believes she was denied a United States O-1 visa in April 2020, because she no longer identified as “Lady Saw.”

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