With 2.8 million people,0 Jamaica is the third most populous Anglophone country in the Americas (after the United States and Canada), and the fourth most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston is the country's capital and largest city. Most Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, with significant European, East Asian (primarily Chinese), Indian, Lebanese, and mixed-race minorities. Because of a high rate of emigration for work since the 1960s, there is a large Jamaican diaspora, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The country has a global influence that belies its small size; it was the birthplace of the Rastafari religion and reggae music (and such associated genres as dub, ska, and dancehall); and it is internationally prominent in sports, including cricket, sprinting, and athletics. Jamaica has sometimes been considered the world's least populous cultural superpower. (Full article...)
Yardie (or Yaadi/Yawdie) is a term often used, particularly within the Caribbean expatriate and Jamaican diaspora, to refer to people of Jamaican origin, though its exact meaning changes depending on context. The term is derived from the Jamaican patois for “home” or "yard". The term may have specifically originated from the crowded "government yards" of two-storey government-funded concrete homes found in Kingston and inhabited by poorer Jamaican residents, though "yard" can also refer to "home" or "turf" in general in Jamaican patois.
Outside of Jamaica, "yardies" is often used to refer to Jamaican gangs or organized crime groups and gangsters of Jamaican origin, nationality, or ethnicity. In this sense, the term is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "posse" or "Jamaican posse" to refer to crime groups of Jamaican origin, with the term "posse" used more frequently in North America and "Yardies" being used more frequently in the United Kingdom. Yardie gangs or Jamaican "posses" are involved in a wide array of criminal activity depending on their location, ranging from political corruption, political violence, and assassination in Jamaica to drug trafficking and gang violence in the US, Canada, and UK. (Full article...)
... that at 107 years old, Stanley Stair of Jamaica was at the time of his death the last surviving Caribbean veteran of World War I?
... that Swedish naval officer Axel Lagerbielke was imprisoned in Lima for over a year, held in Callao and eventually escaped from Panama on an English packet boat to Jamaica?
... that the Carib Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica, was the British West Indies' first building to offer air conditioning upon its opening?
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Marley in 1976
Robert Nesta MarleyOM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, he fused elements of reggae, ska and rocksteady and was renowned for his distinctive vocal and songwriting style. Marley increased the visibility of Jamaican music worldwide and made him a global figure in popular culture. He became known as a Rastafarian icon, and he infused his music with a sense of spirituality. Marley is also considered a global symbol of Jamaican music and culture and identity and was controversial in his outspoken support for democratic social reforms. Marley also supported the legalisation of cannabis and advocated for Pan-Africanism.
Born in Nine Mile, Jamaica, Marley began his career in 1963, after forming the group Teenagers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, which became the Wailers. In 1965, they released their debut studio album, The Wailing Wailers, which included the single "One Love", a reworking of "People Get Ready". It was popular worldwide and established the group as a rising figure in reggae. The Wailers released 11 more studio albums, and after signing to Island Records, changed their name to Bob Marley and the Wailers. While initially employing louder instrumentation and singing, they began engaging in rhythmic-based song construction in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which coincided with Marley's conversion to Rastafari. Around this time, Marley relocated to London, and the group embodied their musical shift with the release of the album The Best of The Wailers (1971). (Full article...)
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods - show another
Callaloo (/ˌkæləˈluː/KAL-ə-LOO, Jamaican Patois:[kalalu]; many spelling variants, such as kallaloo, calaloo, calalloo, calaloux, or callalloo) is a plant used in popular dishes in many Caribbean countries, while for other Caribbean countries, a stew made with the plant is called callaloo. Cuisines, including the plant callaloo or dishes called callaloo, vary throughout the Caribbean. In countries such as Trinidad and Tobago or Grenada, the dish itself is called callaloo and uses taro leaves (known by many local names such as 'dasheen bush', 'callaloo bush', or 'bush') or Xanthosoma leaves (known by many names, including cocoyam and tannia).
Since the leaf vegetable used in some regions differs, some confusion can arise among the vegetables with the dish itself. This, as is the case with many other Caribbean dishes, is a remnant of West African and Taino cuisine. (Full article...)
...that eating an unripe Ackee fruit (pictured), which were introduced to Jamaica from West Africa by Dr. Thomas Clark in 1778, can trigger an acute vomiting and hypoglycemic disease known as Jamaican vomiting sickness?
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