…y’all correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t alot of the 2nd wave (two tone) groups like the English Beat and UB40 kinda coalesce around opposition to the national front and other racist/nationalist political movements?
BTW:
Musically, Ska is a fusion of Jamaican mento rhythm with R&B, with the drum coming in on the 2nd and 4th beats, and the guitar emphasizing the up of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th beats. The drum therefore is carrying the blues and swing beats of the American music, and the guitar expressing the …blah blah blah…The ska beat features drums and bass, rhythm guitar, lots of horns and maybe a Farfisa or Hammond
organ – that’s the ska sound.
- from ska FAQ
Ska comes from Jamaica. It was intented as a truely Jamaican form of dance of music. It took off and became Jamaica’s first sucessful commercial music. Later, it was adopted by “Rude Boys”, often criminal disenfrachinsed people. From ska, came rocksteady. From rocksteady came reggae. Rastafarian elements were added to reggae later on. So reggae is actually an offshoot of ska (I’ve always called it ska for people that can’t dance). So the first wave of ska was almost wholy Jamaican.
In the 70’s, ska reemerged. This “second wave” ska was very focused on racial harmony. Intergrated ska bands sang about getting along during this time of racial strife.
It isn’t until recently that ska became associated with white people. Even now, ska shows are some of the more racially diverse show you can go to. Themes of racial harmony still exist, even in such dubiously “ska” bands as Rancid (great though they may be, they are punk with the occasional ska influence, not ska in any true way). Heck, most of the ska bands I can think of have songs in Spanish (Punch the Clown’s La Tortuga and Let’s Go Bowling’s Este Noche, for example).
I remember hearing a radio programme some years ago discssing the origins of Ska.
Only thing I remember was one old Jmaican claiming that the name came from the sound that the hi-hat made which was struck and llowed to ring for only half a second or so before being closed.
It also had a rival name at the time that never quite caught on called quickbeat.