jamaicanting

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Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometres (145 mi) in length and as much as 80 kilometres (50 mi) in width situated in the Caribbean Sea. It is about 145 kilometres (90 mi) south of Cuba, and 190 kilometres (120 mi) west of the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated. Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning the "Land of Wood and Water", or the "Land of Springs".[3][dead link] Formerly a Spanish possession known as Santiago, it later became the British Crown colony of Jamaica. It is the third most populous anglophone country in North America, after the United States and Canada. It remains a Commonwealth realm.

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SIR ALEXANDER BUSTAMANTE

Born William Alexander Clarke, in the parish of Westmoreland, Jamaica 1884, the son of an Irish planter Robert Constantine Clarke and a Jamaican mother, Mary Clarke, although he is to have stated that his mother was actually Taino.

Not much is known about his early life, he left Jamaica in 1905 and allegedly took the name ‘Bustamante’ from an Iberian sea captain who befriended on his travels (although there are stories that he was adopted by the Spaniard). He spent time in Spain, and was educated there, before joining the Spanish army. He went on to spend time in Cuba, and then New York, where he became moderately wealthy as a money lender following the stock market crash of 1929.

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Bob Marley

--Bob Marley, August 1979

We remember the brilliant and evocative music Bob Marley gave the world; music that stretches back over nearly two decades and still remains timeless and universal. Marley has been called "the first Third World superstar," "Rasta Prophet," "visionary," and" "revolutionary artist." These accolades were not mere hyperbole. Marley was one of the most charismatic and challenging performers of our time.Bob Marley's career stretched back over twenty years. During that time Marley's growing style encompassed every aspect in the rise of Jamaican music, from ska to contemporary reggae. That growth was well reflected in the maturity of the Wailers' music.Bob's first recording attempts came at the beginning of the Sixties. His first two tunes, cut as a solo artist, meant nothing in commercial terms and it wasn't until 1964, as a founding member of a group called the Wailing Wailers, that Bob first hit the Jamaican charts.