A History of Ska: Part 1

A History of Ska Music

Do you know where ska originated? Do you know what it influenced? Do you know the different types of the genre and how they cropped up? Thought not! Well, never fear: this is your guide to everything ska, from its origins to its present condition.

Most people probably at least suspect that ska originated in Jamaica. The sound is somewhat of a giveaway. It started to come out of Jamaica in the 1950s. What most people don’t know however is that ska was not influenced by reggae. No. Reggae was influenced by ska. It was the most popular music genre in Jamaica for a while – although of course reggae has since overtaken it in popularity. The ska that came out of Jamaica in the 1950s would be dubbed “first wave” ska later on. It was influenced by a wide variety of genres, especially R&B, jazz and various forms of Caribbean music.

What defines ska is the “upbeat”. If you know ska music well, you may naturally be able to figure out what the upbeat is. It involves an accented upstroke being played on the guitar, although other instruments often take part in accenting the upstroke too, such as the drums. Horns also became commonplace in ska music and helped towards accenting the guitar upstroke.

This original “first wave” ska became popular in the UK in the ‘60s, especially with mods and skinheads (no not your racist skinheads – these skinheads modelled their looks on Jamaican immigrants and whole-heartedly embraced black music, especially (obviously) ska). Examples of some first-wave ska artists are The Skatalites, Derrick Morgan and The Wailers. The popularity didn’t last long, but it influenced what was to come next, the so-called “2 tone” ska.

(Continues tomorrow)