Mye Laurell revives Diana Ross’s It’s My House in reggae remake

Mye Laurell is back in the reggae conversation with a version of Diana Ross’s It’s My House that sounds less like a tribute and more like a reset. Produced by veteran hitmaker Richie Stephens on the Pot of Gold label, the single is getting airplay because it puts Laurell’s voice, and her history, back at the center of the story.

Stephens did not just cut the track and send Laurell into the booth. By Laurell’s account, the song was his idea after he heard a resemblance between her speaking voice and Diana Ross’s. He taught her the song, pushed her to trust his guidance, and shaped the remake around a classic that already carried a message of personal space, independence and self-possession. That matters, because the original was no deep-cut obscurity. Ross released It’s My House in October 1979 as the third and final single from The Boss, with writing credits to Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.

The reggae treatment gives the record a different weight. Ross’s original had sleek late-70s pop polish, but Laurell’s version leans into a warmer island groove, with the rhythm section doing more of the talking and the vocal phrasing sounding looser, more conversational, and more rooted in reggae timing. The result is not just a copy in a different accent. It feels built to let the song’s self-ownership message ride on a deeper pocket, with Laurell bringing a texture that separates her from simple imitation.

That distinction is important, because Laurell’s return is tied to a longer career, not a one-off nostalgia play. The singer, also known as Laurell Nurse, has worked as a nurse and community organiser while keeping one foot in music. She previously recorded a reggae remix of Gregory Isaacs’s Night Nurse, won the New Jersey Reggae Award for Best Female Singer in 2007, and early in her professional run cut a duet with Delly Ranx. Her music career was interrupted by nursing school and by the demands of building Queens Of Reggae Island Honorary Ceremonies, or QORIHC, the women’s recognition project she founded.

That organisation is now preparing to mark its 10th anniversary with a May 31 ball at Karl Hendrickson Auditorium in Kingston, where 35 women across Jamaica’s creative industries are set to be honoured. Laurell has described QORIHC as an effort to raise the social morale of women in Jamaica while publicly recognising their contribution to entertainment. Put beside It’s My House, the message is clear: this is not just a cover record, it is Laurell re-entering reggae on her own terms.