WHEN American singer Regina Belle performs at A Starry Night at Jamaica House on December 7, the audience will be getting a little more than they are accustomed to.

The R&B artiste, who has performed in Jamaica several times, says her repertoire will include a gospel set.

“We’re going to rest our feet in the music of the gospel. This is a side of me that my Jamaican fans have only gotten a peek into whenever I’ve come to Jamaica. So I hope they’ll be open to me and venture into an area of music that has been and is still the foundation of who I am and why I am,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

Belle, known for hit songs as Make It Like It Was and If I Could, released her second gospel album, Higher, in June. She says that does not prevent her from doing her secular songs.

For her, performing for a Jamaican audience is multi-layered.

“Some parts they listen very intently and other parts they sing with me. I love it,” she says.

Belle says her favourite Jamaican memory happened off stage while she was here for a performance with her mentors, The Manhattans, in 1986.

“An older lady came to the beach with a black frying pan and a grill, and grilled us up some small fish (sprat), and made some coco bread right there in the sand on the beach. That was the greatest. We tried to out-eat each other… I won,” she recalls.

On the matter of Jamaican music, she names Sean Paul, Bunny Wailer and Diana King among artistes she listens, but says her favourite by far is Bob Marley.

“He was and is still radical and challenging for us as a musical prophet that crosses the lines of every culture of this modern day time, though he’s been gone from us for so many years,” she said.