Search results
Jun 7, 2021 · Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Jun 7, 2021 • 3 min read. Ska music serves as a bridge between 1960s Jamaican music, 1970s British dance music, and 1990s American punk music. It does this by fusing many musical influences to create a genre unique unto itself.
Jun 2, 2021 · Shutterstock. While most American iterations of ska and the more commonly-heard ska-punk have tended to be dominated by white musicians and bear a permanent association with the '90s, the genre was actually invented in Jamaica by Black artists in the mid-1960s.
- Lauren Lavin
People also ask
When did ska come out?
Who invented ska music?
Who made ska so popular?
When did ska become popular?
Aug 9, 2021 · Justin Hinds & The Dominoes - Carry Go Bring Come: The Anthology '64-'74 (1964-1974/2005) Because so much early ska was a singles game, compilations are the best introduction to many of the genre ...
Ska, Jamaica’s first indigenous urban pop style. Pioneered by the operators of powerful mobile discos called sound systems, ska evolved in the late 1950s from an early Jamaican form of rhythm and blues that emulated American rhythm and blues, especially that produced in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- The Sound
- Coxsone Dodd
- Rude Boys
- Skanking
- Traditional Ska Musicians and Bands
- Second-Wave Ska Or "Two-Tone" Ska
- Two-Tone Ska Musicians and Bands
- Third-Wave Ska
- Third-Wave Ska Musicians and Bands
Ska music was made for dancing. The music is upbeat, quick and exciting. Musically, it can be characterized with a drumbeat on the 2nd and 4th beats (in 4/4 time) and with the guitar hitting the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th beats. Traditional ska bands generally featured bass, drums, guitars, keyboards, and horns (with sax, trombone, and trumpet being most co...
Clement "Coxsone" Dodd is one of the most important figures in ska history, though he was not a musician. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jamaica was about to receive its independence from Great Britain. Coxsone, a disc jockey, recognized the country's need for national pride and identity and began recording popular bands in his now-legendary st...
The "rude boys" were a Jamaican subculture of the 1960s. Rude Boys were generally unemployed, impoverished Jamaican teens who were hired by sound system operators (mobile DJs) to crash each other's street dances. These interactions often led to further violence and the Rude Boys frequently formed feuding gangs. Fashionable clothing for rude boys wa...
Skanking is the style of dancing that goes along with ska music. It has remained popular among ska fans since the beginning, and it's a relatively easy dance to do. Basically, the legs do "the running man", bending the knees and running in place to the beat. The arms are bent at the elbows, with hands balled into fists, and punch outward, alternati...
Among the artists that made early ska so popular were Desmond Dekker, The Skatalites, Byron Lee & the Dragonaires, The Melodians and Toots & the Maytals. Many ska bands also later played reggae music, which came about later in the 1960s.
Two-tone (or 2 Tone) ska is the second wave of ska music, created in England in the 1970s. In creating this genre, traditional ska was fused with the (then) brand new style of music known as punk rock. The name "2 Tone" refers to a record label that put out these records. The UK-based bands were often racially mixed, with black and white members.
Popular two-tone ska bands include The Specials, Bad Manners, The Higsons, The Beat and The Bodysnatchers.
Third-wave Ska refers to American ska bands that were influenced more by two-tone ska than by traditional ska music. These bands range in their sound from nearly traditional ska to mostly punk. In the early to mid-1990s, third-wave ska saw a major growth in popularity, with many bands having several chart-topping hits.
Among the most popular third-wave ska bands are The Toasters, Operation Ivy, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, Fishbone, Less Than Jake, Save Ferris, Sublime and The Aquabats.
It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
Jamaican Ska is a good choice. Keep in mind that many Jamaicans worked in America, especially the sugar cane fields of Florida and Louisiana. Then listened to American R&B and doo wop, and this helped influence Jamaican Ska's sound. (Just as a side note, Two Tone Ska did not start until 1979 in Coventry England...)
