 However, at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Jamaica's athletes reached heights by nearly doubling the country's total gold medal count and breaking the nation's record for number of medals earned in a single games.Usain Bolt won three of Jamaica's six gold medals at Beijing, breaking an Olympic and world record in all three of the events in which he participated.Shelly-Ann Fraser led an unprecedented Jamaican sweep of the medals in the Women's 100 m.

Although Jamaican dancehall music originated in the late 1970s, it greatly increased in popularity in the late 1980s and 1990s.