Jamaicans of African ancestry are citizens of Jamaica whose ancestry lies in the continent of Africa, specifically West Africa. Up until the early 1690s Jamaica's population was relatively equally mixed between white and black people. The first Africans to arrive came in 1513 from the Iberian Peninsula after having been taken from West Africa by the Spanish and the Portuguese. They were servants, cowboys, herders of cattle, pigs and horses, as well as hunters. When the English captured Jamaica in 1655, many of them fought with the Spanish who gave them their freedom and then fled to the mountains resisting the British for many years to maintain their freedom, becoming known as Maroons.

Between 1500 and 1800, some eleven million Africans were moved to the Caribbean. They were captured by war, as retribution for crimes committed, or by abduction, and marched to the coast in "coffles" with their necks yoked to each other. They were placed in trading posts or forts to await the horrifying six to twelve week Middle Passage voyage between Africa and the Americas during which they were chained together, underfed, kept in the ship's hold in the thousands packed more like sardines than humans. Those who survived were fattened up and oiled to look healthy prior to being auctioned in public squares to the highest bidders.

Carlos Malcolm is a Jamaican trombonist, percussionist and bandleader who was most popular in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Carlos Malcolm was born in Panama c.1935 to Jamaican parents and grew up in Kingston. His father, Wilfred Malcolm , went to Panama  and worked as a bookkeeper  in  the Panama Canal Zone. He became a prominent business man in the city of Colon, established homes in both countries and sent his 5 children back to Jamaica to be educated.  Having studied the liturgy and music of the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church, Wilfred Malcolm was an Anglican Church choir director for many years. He also played  trombone in the “Jazz Aristocrats”, a Panamanian Dixieland  band for which he was manager, and  he took the band to Jamaica in 1936.

Wilfred Malcolm had quite a collection of eclectic music that extended from Bach and Handel to Duke Ellington and Count Basie.  Reflecting upon this period of his life, Carlos often mused that he probably  “subliminally osmosed” the musical styles and arranging formats of various composers as he whistled back at the music wafting through the house every evening his father came home. This probably accounts for Carlos’ notoriety among peers as a ‘musical chameleon’ because he arranges music and functions comfortably in a variety of musical cultures and genres.  Carlos’ father and a few prominent West Indian businessmen in Panama formed a committee that brought to Panama world-class Black American artists in the performing arts. As a child, Carlos recalls listening from the bedroom to conversations and laughter from guests, including celebrated artists Paul Robeson-baritone, Marian Anderson-Contralto, Hazel Scott –Powell (wife of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., of Abyssinia Baptist Church of Harlem) as they came to late dinners after recitals at a local theatre.