Jamaica is known as the birthplace of many popular musical genres, the most well known of which is reggae but also including ragga, ska and dub music. Jamaica's music culture is a fusion of elements from the US with its R&B, rock and roll and soul, and Africa and neighbouring Caribbean islands such as Trinidad with calypso. Jamaica's music has become popular across much of the world. Reggae is especially popular through the international fame of Bob Marley.

Jamaican music has also had an effect on the musical development of other countries, such as the practice of toasting, which was brought to New York City and became rapping, one of the four elements of hip hop culture. UK styles such as jungle also originate in Jamaican music.

Junkanoo (a type of folk music now more closely associated with the Bahamas), the quadrille and work songs were the primary forms of Jamaican music at the beginning of the 20th century. These were synthesised into mento music, which spread across the island. Mento was the first style of Jamaican music to be recorded during the 1950s and has similarities with Trinidadian calypso.

The popularity of mobile sound systems in and around Kingston in the 1950s led to the development of new musical forms. By 1964, a distinctive Jamaican music had sprung up called ska, which was fast and danceable. Perhaps the best-known of the original ska wave were the Skatalites, whose career spanned decades. At first primarily instrumental, ska's rhythms generally didn't lend well to vocal stylings, though some popular artists such as the Maytals and Desmond Dekker and the Aces got their start by singing in this style.

Some of ska's fans were 'rude boys', the local name for gangsters and petty thieves.

Along with the rise of ska came the popularity of DJs, who began talking stylistically over the rhythms of popular songs at sound systems. The popularity of DJs as an essential component of the sound system created a need for instrumental songs, as well as instrumental versions of popular vocal songs. From this arose dub, originally an instrumental version of a vocal song, with the vocal version on the A-side and the dub on the B-side of a single, as a distinct genre.

Ska's popularity grew steadily alongside Rastafarianism, which spread rapidly in impoverished urban areas and among the often politically radical music scene. The lyrics of ska songs began to focus on Rastafarian themes, slower beats and chants entered the music from religious Rastafarian music and ska soon evolved into rocksteady.

Rocksteady was the music of Jamaica's rude boys by the mid-1960s, when the Wailers dominated the charts, taking over from pioneers like Alton Ellis (who is often said to have invented rocksteady). Desmond Dekker's 007 (Shanty Town) brought international attention to the new urban beat. The mix put heavy emphasis on the bass line, as opposed to ska's strong horn section, and the rhythm guitar began playing on the up-beat. Session musicians like Jackie Mittoo (of the Skatalites) became legends during this period.

In the late 1960s, producers like King Tubby and Lee 'Scratch' Perry began stripping the vocals away from tracks recorded for sound system parties. With the bare beats and bass playing and the lead instruments dropping in and out of the mix, DJs began 'toasting' (delivering humorous and often obscene jabs at fellow DJs and local celebrities). Over time, toasting became an increasingly complex activity, and became as big a draw as the dance beats played behind it. In the early 1970s, DJs such as DJ Kool Herc took the practice of toasting to New York, where it became a part of rapping.

By the early 1970s, rocksteady had evolved into reggae music. The style of music at the time was retroactively termed roots reggae. It combined elements from American soul music with the traditional shuffle and one-drop of mento. Reggae quickly became popular around the world, due in large part to the international success of artists like Bob Marley and the Wailers. Reggae music was intricately tied to the expansion of the Rastafarian religion and its principles of pacifism and pan-Africanism. Musicians like Gregory Isaacs and Burning Spear and producers like Perry solidified the early sound of reggae.

By 1973, dub music had emerged as a distinct reggae subgenre, and heralded the dawn of the remix. Developed by record producers such as Perry and King Tubby, dub featured previously-recorded songs remixed with prominence on the bass. Often the lead instruments and vocals would drop in and out of the mix, sometimes processed heavily with studio effects. King Tubby became famous for his remixes of recordings made by others, as well as those he recorded in his own studio.

Following in Tubby's footsteps came artists such as U-Roy and Big Youth, who used Rasta chants in songs. Until the end of the 1970s, Big Youth-inspired dub music with chanted vocals dominated Jamaican popular music.

During the 1980s, the most popular music styles in Jamaica were dancehall and ragga.

Dancehall is essentially speechifying with musical accompaniment, including a basic drum beat (most often played on electric drums) and pop lyrics, rather than the political and spiritual lyrics popular in the 1970s. Dancehall was sometimes violent in lyrical content, and several rival performers made headlines with their feuds across Jamaica (most notably Beenie Man versus Bounty Killer). Ragga is characterised by the use of computerised beats and sequenced melodic tracks.

Ragga barely edged out dancehall as the dominant form of Jamaican music in the 1980s. DJ Shabba Ranks and vocalist team Chaka Demus and Pliers helped inspire an updated version of the rude boy culture called raggamuffin.

The 1980s saw a rise in reggae music outside Jamaica. Reggae and ska had an important influence on UK punk rock bands of the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Clash, Elvis Costello and the Attractions and the Police. Ska revival bands such as the Specials and Madness helped develop a new movement called 2 Tone.

The 1980s saw the end of the dub era in Jamaica, though dub has remained a popular and influential style in the UK, and to a lesser extent throughout Europe and the US. Dub in the 1980s and 1990s has merged with electronic music.

Variations of dancehall continued in popularity into the mid-1990s. Some of the most violent performers of the previous decade converted to Rastafarianism or otherwise changed their lyrical content. Artists like Buju Banton experienced significant crossover success in foreign markets, while Beenie Man and others developed a sizable North American following, due to their frequent guest spots on albums by gangsta rappers like Wu-Tang Clan and Jay-Z. Some ragga musicians, including Beenie Man, Shabba Ranks and Capleton, publicly converted to a new style of conscious music-making.

Dub, world music, and electronic music continue to intertwine, influence each other and create new subgenres into the 2000s.