Several modifiable health behaviors and health factors that comprise the Life’s Simple 7, a cardiovascular health metric, have been associated with hypertension risk. We determined the association between cardiovascular health and incident hypertension in the Jackson Heart Study, a cohort of African-Americans. We analyzed participants without hypertension or cardiovascular disease at baseline (2000–2004) who attended ≥1 follow-up visit in 2005–2008 or 2009–2012 (n=1878). Body mass index, physical activity, diet, cigarette smoking, blood pressure, total cholesterol and fasting glucose were assessed at baseline and categorized as ideal, intermediate or poor using the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 definitions. Incident hypertension was defined at the first visit wherein a participant had systolic blood pressure≥140 mmHg, diastolic blood pressure≥90 mmHg or self-reported taking antihypertensive medication. There percentage of participants with ≤1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 ideal Life’s Simple 7 components was 6.5%, 22.4%, 34.4%, 25.2%, 10.0% and 1.4%, respectively. No participants had 7 ideal components. During follow-up (median: 8.0 years), 944 (50.3%) participants developed hypertension, including 81.3% with ≤1 and 11.1% with 6 ideal components. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) for incident hypertension comparing participants with 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 versus ≤1 ideal component were 0.80 (0.61–1.03), 0.58 (0.45–0.74), 0.30 (0.23–0.40), 0.26 (0.18–0.37) and 0.10 (0.03–0.31), respectively (p-trend<0.001). This association was present among participants with baseline systolic blood pressure<120 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure<80 mmHg and, separately systolic blood pressure 120–139 or diastolic blood pressure 80–89 mmHg. African-Americans with better cardiovascular health have lower hypertension risk.