INTRODUCTION
The other day, Evan Lovett of L.A. In a Minute asked me if I knew any history or tidbits about the Jamaican community in Los Angeles. If you somehow aren’t aware of L.A. in a Minute, take a check it out now. Anyway, as far as Jamaican Los Angeles went, I had little information. He said that there was little information available that he could find. I couldn’t find any books about the subject. That was all I needed to become interested in delving into the subject. What follows is what I learned. As always, please share your corrections, anecdotes, and additions in the comments and — where appropriate — I will incorporated them into this edition of No Enclave and/or add them to this amp of Jamaican Los Angeles. Thanks in advance.
JAMAICA
Jamaica (Jamaican Patois: Jumieka) is and island country in the Caribbean Sea. There are thirteen independent nations and eighteen dependencies of France, the Netherlands, UK, and US in the West Indies subregion of North America. At 10,990 square kilometers, Jamaica is the third largest Caribbean island (after Cuba and Hispaniola), and the fourth largest country (after Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti). It is the fifth most populous county/dependency (after Puerto Rico) in the Caribbean and the third-most populated county in Anglo-America. All of that said, it’s still smaller in size and less populous than Los Angeles County.
JAMAICANS
Prior to the European conquest of the West Indies, most of the islands there were part of the Taíno homeland. The Taínocalled the island, Xaymaca, meaning “land of wood and water.” The Taíno’s creation story tells of them emerging from a cave in modern day Hispaniola. Most anthropologists believe that their ancestors came from South America and settled the islands from the south. There were humans living in the West Indies at least 6,000 years ago. The Spanish arrived in 1494 and named what’s now Jamaica, Santiago. The Spanish relied on the labor of enslaved West African peoples including the Akan, Ashanti, Ibibio, Igbo, and Yoruba. The average enslaved African lived just seven years in Jamaica before dying.
England conquered Santiago in 1655. Enslavement was intensified during their rule until 1807, when it was abolished. By then, roughly two million slaves had been abducted to Jamaica. Emancipation from slavery was granted in 1838. The sugar plantations pivoted to indentured servants, in many cases Jewish, followed in 1845 by the first Indians, followed in 1854 by the first Chinese. In the early 20th century, substantial numbers of Lebanese and Palestinians migrated to Jamaica.
Jamaica achieved independence from the UK on 6 August 1962.
JAMAICAN AMERICANS
According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 1,234,336 Jamaican Americans in 2022. The largest communities of Jamaican Americans are in the South Florida and the New York City metropolitan area.
According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2011, the demographics of Jamaica were 92.1% Afro-Jamaican, 6.1% mixed, .8% Indian, .7% unspecified, and .4% other. According to the same source, some 25% of Afro-Jamaicans are mixed Irish Jamaican. Most Jamaican Americans, naturally, are of African descent but there are also notably Jamaican Americans of at least partial Indian, Chinese, European, and Levantine descent.
Historically, significant numbers of Jamaican temporary workers were employed at US military, the Panama Canal Zone, and as “swallow migrants” in the South. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (enacted on 30 June 1968) opened the door more widely to immigrants from areas outside of Northern Europe, including Jamaicans, many of whom permanently settled in nearby South Florida and more distant, but economically alluring, New York City.
JAMAICAN ANGELENOS
Although California, in 2020, had the sixth largest population of Jamaican Americans (after New York, Florida, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut), it is due more to California’s vast size and population than the existence of any large Jamaican American communities anywhere in the state. The largest Jamaican California community, predictably, is in Los Angeles County — because it is the most populous county in the US. It was ranked by the Census as the county with the 22nd largest county in terms of its Jamaican population which was estimated to have been roughly 5,900 — a not insubstantial number and yet, only about .17% of Los Angeles’s population.
JAMAICAN ANGELENO MUSIC AND MUSICIANS
Jamaica’s best-known cultural import, in my estimation, has to be reggae, right? Reggae, for anyone somehow unfamiliar, is a popular music that arose in Jamaica in the late 1960s. When I was in high school in Tampa, WMNF seemed to mostly play reggae with a bit of soca tossed in. Back then — this was the early 1990s — that meant lots of Mad Cobra, Ninjaman, Shabba Ranks, and Super Cat. Dancehall, in other words.
It wasn’t until college in Iowa, though, that I realized how huge Bob Marley was for college students there. I knew and liked “Could You Be Loved,” which was then a staple of VH1, but I was shocked at the proliferation of Bob Marley posters hung on the walls of dorm rooms and frat houses. I delivered pizza in college — so I saw a lot of dorm and frat house interiors. It was almost as if a CD copy of Legend was included in some sort of dorm room bundle along with devil sticks, a hacky sack, and an eighth. It didn’t take long to realize, though, that for most college students, Legend contained all the reggae they needed to know. I didn’t exactly hear a lot of Augustus Pablo or Lee “Scratch” Perry echoing across the quad… nor, for that matter, any ragga.
It will surprise no one, then, that Los Angeles has always had a deeper appreciation for reggae than a Midwestern college campus. The first record store that specialized in Jamaican music in Los Angeles was likely Barton’s Records & Gift Shop, which opened in Baldwin Hills in 1972. By 1980, there was also I & I Records, in nearby Angeles Mesa, and Tuff Gong International had opened an outlet in Hyde Park. That year, the two records stores (along with Del Rose Act 1 Jamaican Restaurant and Stone Market — more on them later) came together to organize Reggae in Motion — a weekend of music that featured Delroy Wilson and Uprising on Friday — and Jimmy Riley and Uprising on Sunday. In 1982, Barton’s Records presented Caribbean Harbour Cruise, a reggae cruise that featured Endless Vibration Disco and Whirlwind Hi Fi. These were likely some of the first big Los Angeles events celebrating Jamaican culture.
Around the same time; Chuck Foster, Hank Holmes, and Roger Steffens launched a reggae show on KCRW called “Reggae Beat.” Their Minister of Information, CC Smith, later presented her own show, “African Beat,” and served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Reggae and African Beat, which later became simply The Beat. The first issue of The Beat apparently featured local band, the Skanksters, perfuming at the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Over time, The Beat grew into an internationally distributed and respected magazine and one that remained in publication until 2010.
Of course, reggae isn’t Jamaica’s only musical export. Jamaica has produced its own folk, jazz, and pop traditions— as well as the reggae-related offshoots or predecessors like dancehall, dub, mento, ragga, rocksteady, and ska. Los Angeles has a long history of importing culture through an Anglophilc lens and Jamaican music first came to many non-Jamaican Angelenos via the the UK’s mod revival/ska revival scene. English bands like Bad Manners, The Beat, Madness, The Selecter, and The Specials had many more fans in Los Angeles than earlier Jamaican ska acts like Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, Duke Reid, or Stranger Cole had.
In 1980, an immigrant from London named Howard Paar founded “the original ska/reggae club in L.A.,” the O.N. Klub at 3037 West Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. The soundtrack at “the On” wasn’t strictly Jamaican and also featured mod and soul tunes. It inspired and featured local ska-inflected bands like the Boxboys, Fishbone, and the Untouchables. The On moved to the Yucca Corridor in 1984 where it soldiered on until June 1985. In the 1990s, ripples from the Southern California’s ska revival made their way into the mainstream via Southern California bands like Hepcat, No Doubt, Save Ferris, and Sublime. None of them may’ve had ancestral roots in Jamaica — but their music certainly did.
On the radio, Chuck Foster has spun reggae on KPFK‘s Reggae Central onSundays from 2:00 – 5:00 pm since 1997. KLXU’s Reggae Show, hosted by Junior Francis, airs on Saturdays from 8:00 – 11:00 pm, and has aired since 1999. Junior Francis also hosts Reggae Connection on KSPC every Monday at 6:00 pm.
Today, there are still weekly reggae club nights and festivals across the Los Angeles. Tom Chasteen’s Dub Club (at the Echoplex) started in 2000. Ben White, David “Boss Harmz” Orlando, Jason Mason, and Michale Stock’s Punky Reggae Party (at La Cita) launched in 2006. Quie Anthony “Q Bwoy” Davis’s Poom Poom Tuesdays (at El Cid) began in 2009. There’s also Reggae Revival Thursdays (at Los Potros), Vibes (at Secret Island Tiki Lounge), Irie Tuesdays (at Carbon Lounge), Overproof Fridays (at Senator Jones), and, frankly, too many to name. Suffice to say, there’s probably at least one reggae night somewhere in Los Angeles almost every night and certainly every weekend.
Occasional reggae festivals include Cali Vibes, Reggae Fest LA, KCRW’s Reggae Night, Jamaican JerkFest, and Jamaican Gold.
With all of the love for reggae in Los Angeles, it will perhaps come as something of a surprise, then, that most Jamaican Angeleno music makers work in genres other than reggae. Rapper Bushwick Bill was born in Kingston and was a member of Houston’s Geto Boys. I used to see him so often in Hollywood that I have to assume that he lived here at least part of the time until his death in 2019. Lo-fi house producer Delroy Edwards has a Jamaican mother. Rapper Heavy D was born in Mandeville and died outside of his Beverly Hills home in 2011. Rapper JPEGMafia’s parents are from Jamaica. Kingston-born Kat C.H.R. makes experimental music. Producer Mustard, whose father is Jamaican, works mostly in hip-hop. DJ Ned Learner, of KXLU’s Ned’s Mystery Machine, mostly spins funk, instrumental, jazz, psychedelia, and soul. Tevin Campbell was a hit New Jack Swing singer in the 1990s. Half Jamaican/half-Vietnamese Tyga is a rapper. Black Eyed Peas frontman, will.i.am, has a Jamaican father, and is known for his pop rap.
JAMAICAN CUISINE & JAMAICAN ANGELENO RESTAURANTS
After reggae, Jamaica’s second most visible cultural expression in Los Angeles is probably food. Jamaican Cuisine, like nearly all cuisines, draws from a mixture of indigenous and immigrant cooking traditions and ingredients. Jamaican cuisines influences can be traced to Angola, China, Cornwall, Ireland, England, France, India, Lebanon, Portugal, Spain, West Africa, and elsewhere. Callalloo and cassava are popular indigenous ingredients. Popular ingredients like bok choy, breadfruit, chayote (known locally as chocho), coconuts, okra, pigeon peas (gungo peas), plantains, sweet potatoes (boniatos), taro (dasheen) were all introduced to and embraced by Jamaican cooks ages ago. Popular Jamaican dishes include ackee and saltfish, curry goat, fried dumplings, Jamaican patties, jerk chicken, jerk pork, rice and peas, and stew pork. Numerous breads, cakes, and soups popular throughout the Caribbean are also popular.
Most Jamaican food is decidedly animal-based with chicken, cow, fish, goat, and pig flesh dominating many dishes. There is a long tradition, though, of vegetarianism, too. The Ital (or “I-tal”) diet is followed by many Rasatari, many of whom believe that the consumption of dead animal flesh is in contradiction with “Livity” — although same apparently make an exception for fish. Some Rastafari also avoid artificial additives and salt. One of the first local Jamaican restaurants with an ital section on its menu was Natraliart Jamaican Restaurant & Market, founded by Charles “Jucy” Forrester at least as long ago as 1987. Los Angeles, it should also be noted, used to host the Los Angeles Reggae Vegan Fest.
Despite its relatively small size, the local Jamaican community has produced and supported a fair number of Jamaican cooks, markets, restaurants, and more general Caribbean restaurants serving Jamaican fare and ingredients. The first Jamaican market was almost surely Stone Caribbean Market, which opened around 1971, and closed sometime after 2013, when I passed it on my exploration of Metro’s then-yet-to-be-built K Line.
The first Jamaican restaurant in Los Angeles was probably Del Rose Act 1 (or simply “Act I”), in Culver City, which was in operation in the from at least as early as 1978 until about 1992. It hosted a dance night, Yard Style, featuring DJs Jah Ron-I and Rankin’ Kow, and was involved in many of the city’s Jamaican festivals and music events. Jamaican cuisine and music seem to have flowered in Los Angeles in the 1980s. A Little Jamaica never coalesced, although there are clusters of Jamaican businesses sprang up around Culver City, Inglewood, and Leimert Park — not coincidentally the same area, generally speaking, that supports many of the city’s Belizean and African businesses.
One of the most celebrated Jamaican restaurants was Coley’s Kitchen, which was founded by Don and Veda Coley on Crenshaw Bouelvard in 1982, two years after Don moved relocated from Jamaica to Southern California. Around 1990, the Coley’s sold the restaurant and opened Coley’s Place in Ladera Heights. Meanwhile, a second location of Coley’s Kitchen opened in Beverly Hills. Coley’s Place closed around 1996. The original Coley’s Kitchen closed around 1999. Coley’s, however, lives on The Original Coley’s in Sherman Oaks, owned by the couple’s son-in-law and daughter, Candice Coley-Thompson.
One Jamaican restaurant, Joe’s Universal Quality, was the site of a deadly shooting in 1990. According to witnesses, two or three gunmen barged into Joe’s and fired more than twenty rounds. When the smoke cleared, Newton Wayde Dacosta was dead and four others were wounded. An LAPD officer said that the shooting “could be linked to a territorial war among Jamaican drug gangs.” His opinion was questioned, however, and one of the investigators said that there was zero evidence that Jamaican posses were involved.
The same could not be said for the deadly massacre at Dilly’s Kitchen. On 15 October 2015, Jamaican gangster Marion Jones and accomplices shot and killed four people and wounded eleven at a Jamaican home kitchen Amongst the dead was Jamaican gangster, Robert ‘Rodigan’ Davis. Jones was captured in 2016, charged with four counts of murder, and pled not guilty.
I mention both of these stories with hesitation. Both are dramatic, tragic, and I think, newsworthy — and worth noting occurred 25 years apart. I certainly don’t want to create the impression that there’s any special danger in visiting Jamaican restaurants, though. According to the FBI’s most recent rankings, Los Angeles only ranks 32nd in violent crime — and despite the LAPD’s massive effort to portray the city as a lawless hellscape — violent crime decreased more than 3% in 2023. In fact, you’re more likely to be killed by a car in Los Angeles then you are by a gun. If you can walk, bus, bike, scoot, or take a train — you’re helping make our streets even safer and our environment cleaner.
On 17 February, the city of Burbank will host the Food of Jamaica Festival.
JAMAICAN ANGELENO FILM AND THEATER
Jamaica’s film industry has always been rather small — especially in comparison to Hollywood. In the Classic Hollywood Era, Jamaica was a popular setting for swashbuckler and other adventure films including Captain Blood (1932), The Black Swan (1942), City Beneath the Sea (1953), Jamaica Run (1953), Port Sinister (1953), Manfish (1956). The swashbuckling genre was always, surely, one of the most resistant to revival but that didn’t stop occasional Jamaica-set attempts including The Son of Captain Blood (1962), Swashbuckler (1976), andThe Treasure Seekers (1979). After Cutthroat Island (1995) became one of the biggest box office bombs in Hollywood history, it seemed unlikely that Hollywood would soon return to Jamaica for a pirate-themed film. And yet they did, with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). Not only was it the fourth in an uninspired series of Disney films based on a ride (following Tower of Terror, Mission to Mars, and The Country Bears), it was such a huge financial success that it inspired Disney to make films based on pretty much all of its rides and more sequels than I care to count.
The best known Jamaican film, at least in the US, was The Harder they Come, completed in 1972 and starring Peter Tosh. It was released in Los Angeles in 1973 and is largely credited with introducing reggae to a global audience — along with the release — also in 1973 — of Bob Marley and the Wailer’s first two albums for Island, Catch a Fire and Burnin’. In the decades since, Jamaican films that have found a receptive audience in Los Angeles tend to be similarly connected to both music and criminality. When I oversaw the movie section at Amoeba, Rockers (1978), Dancehall Queen (1997), Third World Cop (1999), and Shottas (2002) were all “evergreen” titles. If you want to see a newer Jamaican film on the big screen, there are occasional entries at the annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF).
In the 1980s, Jamaica seems to have functioned as an appealingly and suitably exotic escape from the rat race in the collective American consciousness — or, as it was put in the song “Kokomo,” one of the litany of places where Mike Love could “get there fast” and then “take it slow.” “Kokomo” was featured in the 1988 film, Cocktail, about a cocky young man eager to work in the flashy business world of New York City but who ends up at a beachside bar in Jamaica. The “trouble in paradise” trope nearly always rears its head, though. See also Clara’s Heart (1988), or the Miami Vice episode, “Cool Runnin’.” I haven’t seen How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), which was largely set in and filmed in Jamaica, but I did see Terry McMillan and Jonathan Plummer on Oprah and even if the movie ends on a happy note, their relationship did not.
It’s probably safe to assume that a fair number of Jamaicans come to Los Angeles to pursue dreams of film stardom. Actors, filmmakers, and playwrights of at least partial Jamaican ancestry who call Los Angeles home — or at one time did — include Alano Herberto Miller, Basil Wallace, Carl Lumbly, Corbin Bleu Reivers, Danielle Sappleton, Frank Silvera, Jada Pinkett, Janeshia Adams-Ginyard, Jo Rochelle, King Bach, Madge Sinclair, Marsha Thomason, Nattalie Gordon, Olivia Olson, Shari Belafonte, Sherando Ferril Cupid, Ulato Sam, and Wentworth Miller. Shari Belafonte, of course, is the daughter of the great Harry Belafonte — who although he acted in Hollywood films may not have ever lived in Los Angeles long enough to consider himself an Angeleno. Silvera notably co-founded (with Vantile “Motojicho” Whitfield) the Theatre of Being for black actors in 1963 as well as the The Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop (Garland Lee Thompson in collaboration Morgan Freeman, Billie Allen, and Clayton Riley) in 1973.
JAMAICAN ANGELENO ATHLETES
“Cool Runnin’” was not only the title of a great episode of Miami Vice but the title of a film based on the Jamaican National Bobsleigh Team. Well, the movie was called Cool Runnings (1992) — but this was my attempt at a smooth transition into Jamaican Angeleno athletes.
The most popular sports in Jamaica include association football (soccer), cricket, basketball, netball, and tennis. Los Angeles is home to — or has been home to — numerous athletes of full or partial Jamaican ancestry including basketball players Andre Drummond, Ben Gordon, Kyle Anderson, Norman Powell, Roy Hibbert, Sek Henry, and Tristan Thompson;association footballers Allyson Swaby, Ndamukong Suh and Robin Fraser; baseball players Chili Davis, Devon White, and Justin Masterson; American football players Patrick Chung and Tony Gonzalez; cricketeer Elmore Hutchison; jockey Rajiv Maragh; and star of track and field, Sandra Farmer-Patrick.
OTHER NOTABLE JAMAICAN ANGELENOS
Other notable Jamaican Angelenos include endocrinologist E. Dale Abel, history professor Robert A. Hill, dancer Gabriella Bridgmon, judge Leondra Kruger, painter Maureen Tepedino, journalists Chelsea Hylton and Lester Holt, author Shanike Johnson, Good American co-founder Emma Grede, clothing designer Andre Emery, clothing designer Safiya Jihan Miller, PAPAIŸO’s Micha Alleyne, Jamaican Goddess Entertainment founder Savannah Landeros, Rifkuttinup founder Sharifa Edwards-Pennington, and fitness trainer Simone Mardner.
JAMAICAN FESTIVALS AND OBSERVANCES IN LOS ANGELES
Many of Jamaica’s most popular holidays are the same as those celebrated in the UK (and US) — albeit with less separation of church and state than is the norm in the latter. Public holidays include New Year’s Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Other public holidays are specific to Jamaica including Emancipation Day (1 August), Independence Day (6 August), and National Heroes Day (the third Monday of October). Most local Jamaican festivals celebrated publicly in Los Angeles are related to music and, especially, music — so consult those sections for more information.
Although not specifically Jamaican, there will be Jamaican culture and talent on offer at the free Caribbean Heritage Festival LA in September. It is asking for donations, though, to help make it happen.
JAMAICAN ASSOCIATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS IN LOS ANGELES
Jamaican organizations active in Los Angeles include the Jamaica Awareness Association of California (JAAC), the Jamaican Cultural Alliance (JCA), Celebrate Jamaica Los Angeles (CJLA), and the Jamaican Consulate in Los Angeles.
FURTHER READING
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Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, essayist, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking paid writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities. He is not interested in generating advertorials, cranking out clickbait, or laboring away in a listicle mill “for exposure.”
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