Pat McGrath: Matriarchs

Family is the centrepiece for our Black History Month celebration, and this week, Black women are our focus as we lift up the matriarchal figures who have created and contributed to so much cultural beauty. To help soundtrack the month, famed beauty entrepreneur Pat McGrath has curated a playlist of the songs that have been seminal in her life. It’s a wide-ranging and cross-genre collection that features artists as disparate as ’60s girl group The Shirelles, Lil’ Kim and multi-hyphenate Grace Jones, whose 1977 single “La Vie En Rose” is included here. “There is something about the strength and beauty of Grace which somehow reminds me of my mother and the other wondrous women in my family,” McGrath tells Apple Music. “I love this particular song and the powerhouse performance because it’s about duality: She’s masculine yet feminine, classic yet modern, hard yet soft. She exudes the power of the colour pink in a totally new way. [It’s] like the best makeup—it’s a classic, subverted. Edith Piaf for a new age, reinterpreted to stand the test of time. I love Grace’s interpretation so much that I named one of my eye palettes after it, a collection of pinks and purples meant as an homage to the divine Ms. Jones and a thank you for the decades of iconic inspiration.” Each inclusion is a reminder of the infinite ways in which Black women have shown up in music over time, across countless genres, and making history all along the way. If you hear something you like, be sure to save it to your library.