2 March 2021
It’s an island in the sun that creates superstars, from Bob Marley to Usain Bolt, and has a culture that has influenced the world. Compare Jamaica with nations of a similar landmass (Qatar, Gambia, the Lebanon) and those with a similar population (Mongolia, Armenia, Kuwait) and easy to see why what Jamaicans refer to their homeland as “the biggest small island on the planet."
King of Athletics
He is the undisputed King of Jamaican Sports, and an iconic figure: a towering 6ft 5 giant of a guy who redefined track sprinting worldwide. Usain Bolt, became a charismatic sporting legend, with his beaming smile, cheeky on-camera antics and high-velocity legs. born Usain St Leo Bolt to grocer parentsin the rural Trelawny parish, Bolt excelled as a cricket fast bowler in his preteen years and was an enthusiastic fan of European soccer, especially Real Madrid and Manchester United. Focusing on track and field proved the right move, and in the 2002 World Junior Championships he was recognised as a sporting prodigy, at aged 15, cheered on by a crowd of 36,000 in Jamaica’s National Stadium in Kingston. At 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 metres), Bolt defied the conventional wisdom that very tall sprinters are disadvantaged as fast starters, wowing the world with a succession of mesmerising on-track performances that captivated the world.
Since then Bolt has shattered sprint records and won a cupboard full of World Championship trophies and Olympic golds in a career that spanned 11 years, cementing his place in history at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016 as the best sprinter in history. He captured golds in the 100-metre, 200-metre, and 4 × 100-metre relay events and became the first person to win golds in the two individual sprints in three straight Olympics. Jamaica celebrated for days.
A year later, after the 2017 world championships, Bolt retired from athletics. He remains hugely popular around the world, spending extended periods abroad, but has his heart in Jamaica where he donated J$1,000,000 (approx USD 7,500) to the Special Olympics Jamaica team ahead of the Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi.
Queen of Food
Jamaican-born chef Sara Mair grew up amongst the soul kitchens and sizzling food stalls in the nation’s capital Kingston. She found fame after appearing as a 2007 contestant on the third season of the reality television competition To0 Chef. Mair, who moved the USA to pursue her culinary studies and build her career, worked under renowned award-winning chef Mark Militello, one of the forefathers of America’s exciting fusion style of cooking, New Florida cuisine. In her kitchen role at “Marks Place” she spent 4.5 years working her way through the ranks, befriending co-chef Michelle Bernstein who she would later work with as two of Miami South Beach’s trendiest restaurants, “Tantra” and “The Strand”. From here, Sara went on to become Executive Chef of “55 The Restaurant” and Chef de Cuisine at world-renowned restaurant Ortanique On The Mile with pioneering chef Cindy Hutson at Ortanique, where she was instrumental in launching and running four restaurants in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Vegas and Destin, Fl. She took a position on Bravo’s Top Chef and achieved a Top 5 ranking before returning to her Jamaican homeland to open and revamp restaurants on the island, such as favourite Pizza Pazza, Fiction, Jack Sprat and John Crows. She has also partnered with Tanya Taylor to produce “The Local Gourmet” as well as “The All Jamaican Jack Danielle’s Grill Off”. She has also reunited with Chef Cindy Hutson as Executive Chef to launch Ortanique at Camana Bay in Grand Cayman and has been instrumental in creating menus and restaurant concepts across the Caribbean. Sara presents her own Jamaican culinary TV show “Culinary Journey’s with Chef Sara Mair” which airs locally each week. Her consulting company “Cooking n Tings” continues to promote Jamaican recipes worldwide and Sarahas opened her first concept “Smokies BBQ Smoke House” whilst producing a range of home-cured bacon and artisan cheese.
Queen of World Beauty Pageants
As a country that has just 1-million females aged between 15 and 64, Jamaica has an enviable success story in its achievements in the greatest beauty pageant in the world.Since Sheila Mechtilde Chong first represented Jamaica in Miss World in 1959, Jamaican entrants have been highly ranked in almost every year. The entrant in 1962 was Chriss Leon, although Marlene Murray was crowned Miss Jamaica. Leon placed among the top 15 finalists. In 1963, the designated representative was Carole Joan Crawford, who won the Miss World title. Erica Jeanne Cooke went to Miss World 1964, placing sixth, although Marie (Mitzie) Constantine was Miss Jamaica. In 1976, Cindy Breakspeare represented Jamaica, becoming the second Jamaican to win the Miss World title. Miss Jamaica 1960, Judith Willoughby, withdrew from the Miss World competition and in 1961, Miss Jamaica Marguerite Lewars was instead entered in the Miss Universe pageant, held in July. Lewars had a role in the James Bond film, Dr No, which started filming in January 1962. Jamaica was making its debut at Miss Universe in 1961. Overall, in 60 years of participation at the Miss World contest, 27 Jamaican entrants have made the final 10 or 17, depending on the number selected for the specific year. Sixteen have finished in the top five or six with 4 claiming the coveted Miss World Crown.
With four Jamaican women winning the Miss World title, Jamaica is recognised as one of the most successful countries consistently participating in the pageant. The latest to be crowned, Toni-Ann Singh (born February 3, 1996) won Miss World in 2019 and is a previous Miss Jamaica World. She was born to an Afro-Jamaican mother and Indo-Jamaican father in Morant Bay, at the mouth of the River Morantin Jamaica’s southeast.
King of Jamaican Music
Jamaican singer, musician and songwriter Bob Marley has sold more than 20 million records - and hasn’t just conquered Jamaica with his talent; he has conquered the world.
Bob Nesta Marley came from humble beginnings born at the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. His parents Norval Sinclair Marley and Cedella Malcolm had no inkling that their son would introduce reggae music to the world; and grow to be a man who - even 30 years after death - remains one of the genre's most beloved artists.
Not every reggae musician has changed cultural landscapes like Marley did. Every song he wrote had a message – be it love, hope, peace or political uprising. He reached out to the poor and disfranchised and, by doing so, touched the world. Nothing says Bob Marley, peace and Jamaica like his iconic One Love. Originally released from Marley’s 1977 album Exodus, the track captured the hearts of the people around the globe. Since then, the song has been featured in Jamaica Tourist Board television advertisements since 1994. Stephen Marley and Richard Branson re-recorded the song in 2007 in Jamaica to promote Branson's Virgin Airways flights to Jamaica.
Today Marley’s best-loved anthems provide an uplifting, audible backdrop of positivity across Jamaica, from city neighbourhoods to tiny, rural villages and glitzy beach resorts. Around any special Bob Marley anniversary, posters adorn Trench Town – the neighbourhood in Kingston where a young Marley developed his love of music. Jamaica’s people festoon their houses and streets with Rastafarian banners and bunting on and around Marley’s birthday each year on the 6th February - without fail. Flags fly around the hotel properties owned by Chris Blackwell of Island Records fame on this anniversary, as the man who signed Marley in the early Seventies. It was through Blackwell that Marley gave his songs an international audience and helped bring Jamaica, and the Caribbean, to the world.
Today Marley’s music can be heard everywhere - an instantly recognisable rhythmic boom-boom bass of reggae, the unmistakable beat-bouncing musical genre so synonymous with the island’s dreadlocked maestro. Marley died from cancer in 1981 at the age of 36 and buried on the island with full state honours to the sound of “One Love”. More than 40,000 people filed past his coffin each in Jamaica’s National Arena.
King of Fashion
He is a leading innovator in Jamaican fashion industry, and a dynamo behind the island as a global fashion centre and emerging Caribbean powerhouse of style, and Deiwght Peters - a former banker turned fashion mogul - remains dedicated to raising the bar. The founder of Saint International Ltd, Jamaica’s world-renowned modelling agency,is a leading supplier of black models to fashion shoots and catwalks across the globe. Founded 12 years ago, and with an extensive client portfolio that spans top design houses such as Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Diane von Furstenberg and Marc Jacobs, Peters has placed his protégées on the pages of Teen Vogue, Elle Magazine and Vogue. He has choreographed major fashion shows and created shows featured on E! and the Travel Channel, in addition to managing talent. As the head of Saint International, Peters has curated and produced some of the Caribbean region’s biggest and most prestigious fashion events including Model Icon, Fashion Face of the Caribbean and Style Week Jamaica— cited as the biggest and hottest live fashion event in Caribbean and famous for its 150ft runway. Peters has introduced the “Avant-Garde Designer of the Year Competition”’ which gives young emerging Jamaican fashion designers a spotlight and helps to further their international ambition whilst giving talented models - many from humble beginnings - a global career boost.
King of Words
Jamaica-bornBooker Prize winningnovelist Marlon James was born in 1970 and has won legions of literary fans as the first Jamaican author to take home the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award. He is author of the New York Times-bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 2019. His novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, and the Minnesota Book Award. It was also a New York Times Notable Book. James is also the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Minnesota Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction and an NAACP Image Award. His first novel, John Crow’s Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice.
Professor James graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in Language and Literature and from Wilkes University in 2006 with a Master’s Degree in creative writing. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Esquire, Harpers, The New York Times, Granta, GQ, and the Caribbean Review of Books. As Writer in Residence and Associate Professor of English at Macalester Collage, James arrived in America from Jamaica with $200 in cash in his pocket and the promise of a one-year teaching job and now enjoys worldwide literary stardom.
King of Vacations
The Hon. Gordon “Butch” Stewart is renowned across the globe as a dynamic hospitality visionary who changed the way the world took a vacation forever. His life (1941 - 2021) was dedicated to creating amazing holiday experiences and he will forever be remembered as an astute Jamaican entrepreneur and one of the hospitality industry’s most vibrant personalities. When he founded Sandals Resorts International, the world’s leading all-inclusive resort company, Stewart was an an unstoppable force. He defied the odds by exceedingexpectations to single-handedly create the world’s most awarded holiday brand from one resort in Jamaica to over two dozen distinct resorts and villas Caribbean-wide.
Butch Stewart was born in Kingston, Jamaica on July 6, 1941 and grew up along the island country’s North Coast, a tropical paradise that now boasts several of his Luxury Included® Sandals and Beaches Resorts. It was here that Stewart developed his love of the sea, dominoes and free enterprise and where - at the tender age of 12 - Stewart first stepped into the hospitality industry selling fresh-caught fish to local hotels. When given the opportunity, 1981, to redevelop a rundown hotel in Bay Roc on Jamaica’s Montego Bay he undertook a $4 million renovation project to transform it into Sandals Montego Bay. It became the flagship of what is today the most popular award-winning, all-inclusive resort chain in the world and launched an elevated holiday experience in which guests were offered an unsurpassed level of luxury. Today there are15 Luxury Included® SandalsResorts located throughout the Caribbean including Jamaica, The Bahamas, Grenada, Barbados, Antigua and Saint Lucia. Each offers stunning beachfront settings, luxurious accommodations and the many features that make the Sandals Luxury Included® experience. Throughout his career, Stewart stood by a steadfast principle of “we can do it better”, an ethos that won his resorts huge guest approval and loyalty - over 40% of guests were returning visitors. His long list of international accolades and local awards includes Jamaica’s highest national distinctions: The Order of Jamaica (O.J.), and Commander of the Order of Distinction (C.D.).
