Most Influential AfroCaribbeans

Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados

Usain Bolt

Usain St. Leo Bolt is a Jamaican retired sprinter, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay.

Sammy Sosa

Samuel Peralta Sosa is a Dominican-American former professional baseball right fielder. He played in Major League Baseball for 19 seasons, primarily with the Chicago Cubs. After playing for the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox, Sosa joined the Cubs in 1992 and became regarded as one of the game’s best hitters.

Karl-Anthony Towns Jr.

Karl-Anthony Towns Jr., is a Dominican-American professional basketball player for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association.

Marcellus Wiley Sr.

Marcellus Vernon Wiley Sr. is an American sportscaster and former American football defensive end who played 10 seasons in the National Football League.

Adam Sanford

Adam Sanford is a former professional cricketer who played eleven Test matches for the West Indies between 2002 and 2004.

Deandre Ayton

Deandre Edoneille Ayton Sr. is a Bahamian professional basketball player for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association.

Ozzie Albies

Ozhaino Jurdy Jiandro “Ozzie” Albies is a Curaçaoan professional baseball second baseman for the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball.

John Barnes

John Barnes is a former professional soccer player and manager. Often considered one of the greatest English players of all time, Barnes currently works as an author, as well as a commentator and pundit for ESPN and SuperSport.

Peter Tosh

Winston Hubert McIntosh, professionally known as Peter Tosh, was a Jamaican reggae musician. Along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, he was one of the core members of the band the Wailers, after which he established himself as a successful solo artist and a promoter of Rastafari.

Bebo Valdés

Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro, better known as Bebo Valdés, was a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger.

Johnny Ventura

Juan de Dios Ventura Soriano, better known as Johnny Ventura nicknamed El Caballo Mayor, was a Dominican singer and band leader of merengue and salsa.

Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Jacqueline Bailey Rae is an English singer and songwriter.

Derek Walcott

Sir Derek Alton Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Pop Smoke

Bashar Barakah Jackson, known professionally as Pop Smoke, was an American rapper.

Frantz Fanon

Frantz Omar Fanon, also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a Marxist, Franchophone Afro Caribbean psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique.

Hubert Harrison

Hubert Henry Harrison was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, race and class conscious political activist, and radical internationalist

Stuart Hall

Stuart Henry McPhail Hall FBA was a Jamaican-born British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist.

C. L. R. James

Cyril Lionel Robert James, who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist.

W. Arthur Lewis

Sir William Arthur Lewis was a Saint Lucian economist at the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University. Lewis was known for his contributions in the field of economic development.

Pedro Alonso Niño

Pedro Alonso Niño was an Afro-Spanish explorer. He piloted the Santa María during Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492, and accompanied him on his third voyage in 1498 to Trinidad.

Arlie Petters

Arlie Oswald Petters, MBE is a Belizean-American mathematical physicist, who is the Benjamin Powell Professor of Mathematics and a Professor of Physics and Economics at Duke University.

Mary Seacole

Mary Jane Seacole was a British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman who set up the “British Hotel” behind the lines during the Crimean War.

Dutty Boukman

Dutty Boukman was an early leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born in Senegambia, he was enslaved to Jamaica. He eventually ended up in Haiti, where he became a leader of the Maroons and a vodou houngan.