This book examines the racial and socio-linguistic dynamics of Jamaica, a majority black nation where the dominant ideology continues to look to white countries as models, yet which continues to defy the odds. The authors trace the history of how a nation of less than three million people has come to be at the centre of cultural, racial and linguistic influence globally; producing a culture than has transformed the way that the world listens to music, and a dialect that has formed the lingua franca for a generation of young people. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of Caribbean linguistics, Africana studies, diaspora studies, sociology of language and sociolinguistics more broadly.