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existence of modern ska music. Hence this article. To get a better understanding about the music, we should address some commonly asked. Why do fans dress up in suits and funny lil' hats? The original fans of Jamaican music were the Jamaicans themselves. In the mid sixties, when ska had slowed down to rock steady, the prevalent style was that of the 'rude boy' - a sharp dressed gangster in a stingy-brimmed pork pie hat with out any obvious means to affording such fancy dress. It was very similar to today's "gangsta's of rap music", whose fancy dress and sharp cars stand out in sharp contrast to their poverty-stricken communities. The English 2Tone movement of the late 70s imitated this sharp dress as a way of distinguishing itself from the loud punk style of the day. 'Dressing up to dress down' has always been a hallmark of the modern ska crowd. If the music is originally Jamaican, why in heavens would skinheads be attracted to it? When masses of Jamaicans emigrated to the UK to find work in the 50s and 60s, they brought their culture and music with them. After W.W.II, England suffered a labor shortage - between the men who never came home from war and the mass destruction in the cities, immigrants were welcome to fill the lower ranks of manual labor.The lot in life for any new immigrant group is at the bottom, and England has always been very structured around class. Jamaicans became members of the British working class, and cultural mixing was inevitable. Both Jamaican 'Rude boys' and British 'skinheads' were young and working class. The skinhead style evolved out of the Mod subculture, due to the fact that a declining economy prevented a kid from buying a scooter or having a nice, cushy secretarial position. Both blacks and whites worked in factories, and both shaved their heads and wore big boots as a matter of necessity - the original skinheads were both black and white. Like the original rude boys, skinheads dressed sharp when they went out, despite having no obvious source of income to support a clothes habit. Whatever cultural differences young blacks and whites had, in the late 60s one thing they did share (other than style) was a music - reggae, rock steady, original ska and soul music were all on the menu. While political weather and media frenzy demonized skinheads, the 2Tone movement remembered what skinheads originally loved and focused strictly on the music and anti-racism by example - skinheads who followed ska were unlikely to be racist if they were fans of black music and integrated bands. Today, the third wave of ska is flowing directly out of these styles - the Jamaican Rude Boy, the British Skinhead, and their combined love for the ska. While it may be strange to go to a hot, loud and sweaty ska concert and see kids dressed up in suits and formal dresses (or jack-booted skinheads dancing to Caribbean rhythms,) it all stems from a deep history going back to the ghetto enclaves of 1950s Kingston, Jamaica. Its ironic that its taken 30 years and tens of thousands of miles for the music to come around. R&B and blues of the 40's and 50's lives on in the United States in the 90's in the form of Ska, by way of Jamaica and England. |
