The following excerpts are from the SKA.FAQ as presented in the alt.music.ska newsgroup.
This FAQ (frequently asked questions) can be found on the web at http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/music/ska-faq/part1/faq.html, and was authored by Tomas Willis.



What is ska music?

Ska is dance music, first and foremost. Ska was a *Jamaican dance music* that swept out of Jamaica in the early 1960s to shake the butts of working- and middle-class Jamaicans before going on, via the West Indian immigrant connection, to the UK, and then on to the world. In the UK, ska was also known as *blue beat* music. *Rocksteady*, and later, *reggae* sprang from the loins of ska in the late 1960s. Mid-1970s and 1980s/1990s revivals of this popular dance form have kept this music alive and fun through the present. The ska beat on drums and bass, rhythm guitar, lots of horns and maybe a Farfisa or Hammond organ -- that's the (traditional) ska sound. Ska features a strong bass and drum rhythm section, guitars, keyboards and brass. *I*(author of the FAQ) say, the bigger the ska band, the better.






Where did ska come from?

In the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica rhythm & blues sounds from the African-American experience in America were adapted by Jamaican musicians and blended with traditional Jamaican *mento*, spiced with jazz, as well as ya-ya, calypso, and other island sounds and cranked out of dance hall systems and mobile "sound systems" mounted on huge trucks.

In the late 1950s Jamaica was about to gain independence from Great Britain, and pioneering Jamaican record producer *Clement "Coxsone" Dodd*, no doubt in a spirit of nationalism and a desire to get down, called on his musicians to create a danceable uniquely Jamaican sound. Bassist *Cluet Johnson (Clue J)* ran the "hardest-driving dance and recording band" developing this sound in Jamaica and went about the town greeting his friends with a call of "*Love Skavoovie*." `[SB(JJ)]' From this greeting, the name of the music naturally developed into "*ska*."

In late 1960 and 1961 bands recording for Dodd laid down the first truly ska tracks, distinct from calypso, r&b, jazz and American and British pop sounds. There developed "a unique Jamaican jazz culture where the melody of horns fused with the drums in a free form music which was mellifluous and rebellious."`[RAR,p.126]' Thus, ska became Jamaica's first indigenous popular music form. A hit at home, ska reigned supreme in Jamaica for many years: "The National Dance", indeed.

As many have stated in alt.music.ska, ska did not spring into sudden existence out of nowhere. Many of the elements of ska can be heard in recordings from the late 1950s. It wasn't until these were all brought together in the Kingston scene under the influences of Coxsone, "Prince Buster", Clue J, "Duke Reid" and others that ska emerged as a distinct sound. By the time ska made its "world debut" at the 1964 New York World's Fair at the the Jamaican exhibition it was an established phenomenon at home.

Ska came to England with immigrants in the early 1960s. Known in the UK briefly as "Jamaican Blues", ska inspired the formation of the Blue Beat record company, providing yet another name for the ska sound: "blue beat". Ska gained popularity in the UK with the "Mod" scene, leading to the residual association of small-brimmed trilby (hats) and scooters with ska music.`[HSBR]' (For scooter talk, check out the Usenet group alt.scooter.) About the time "skinheads" in the UK were getting into ska, Trojan Records was still releasing ska hits into the UK top 10 (as late as 1969 or 1970), but by that time rock-steady and reggae were waxing as ska waned, for a while, at least.






Three waves of ska: What is first-wave ska? Second-wave ska? Third-wave ska?

These sound like musicology terms to me. These terms are used by some to describe ska music coming from three different time periods separated by gaps in the popularity of the music. Roughly speaking, first-wave ska began in late 1960 in Jamaica and lasted until the late 1960s in Jamaica and England (as blue beat), by which time its popularity had declined in favor of ska offspring rock-steady and reggae. Seminal first-wave Jamaican ska artists include the Skatalites, Laurel Aitken, Prince Buster, Derrick Morgan and Desmond Dekker.

Joly, joly@dti.net, reminds us that Duke Vin brought Sound System to London in the 50's, and in the Sixties the London Ska scene became so strong that, as can be seen in the movie `Scandal', it eventually toppled the government!

Second-wave ska flourished in the late-1970s and very early 1980s and saw the emergence of popular groups such as the Specials, the (English) Beat, Madness and the like in England. Second-wave ska is strongly associated with the 2 Tone scene [1979-1981] in the UK, as shown in the movie `Dance Craze', although American bands like Her Majesties Secret Service brought the 2-Tone sound to the States in the early Eighties. Two-tone ska is faster, tighter and uses more horns than some older Jamaican ska, although certainly not as much as the Skatalites. Certainly, through the first and second waves, ska was a music for the man-in-street, the working people.

Third-wave ska is a late-1980s/early- 1990s revival of ska, involving such bands as Weaker Youth Ensemble, the Allstonians, Bim Skala Bim, the Voodoo Glow Skulls and The Toasters. Many popular rock/hardcore/funk bands, such as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, are strongly influenced by ska sounds. In the last few years, some bands, like Hepcat, Steady Earnest, the Allstonians, Skavoovie and the Epitones, have reverted to a more roots ska sound.


What is a rude boy (rudy)?

A rude boy is not just an impolite male child. The street-cool toughs of Kingstown, Jamaica, dressed nattily in the latest and hep-est threads were known as "rude boys" and they ruled the Kingstown dance halls. (Read "rude" as "chill" or "dope" or, if you are older, "cool", or if older still, "reet"). The term spread to the UK, and was revived by second-wave ska fans in the UK.

Academic Caribbean historian Horace Campbell writes, in `Rasta and Resistance':


Between 1964 and 1967 a subculture of angry youths developed in the [Jamaican] society. Answering to the psuedonym "Rude Bwoy" [sic] and searching for for avenues of self-expression and recognition, these unemployed youths were quickly integrated into the [ganga] export trade, many of them as enforcers.



... these young people created terror among working people, such that they were feared by both citizens and police.
`[RAR, p. 111]' The [bracketed] comments are mine (the author of the FAQ).



Obviously, rude boys are the people your mother warned you about. For a cinematic example, check out Jimmy Cliff's portrayal of real-life rude boy Ivanhoe Martin Rhygin in the film The Harder They Come.

Laurence Cane-Honeysett wrote on:


From the summer of 1966, up until 1967, a whole series of records referring to the exploits of so-called "Rude Boys" were released in Jamaica. Almost every major artist on the island recorded material featuring lyrics either condemning or defending the actions of the young men who spread mayhem across the island. Some described the Rude Boys as no more than glorified hooligans, who caused trouble for trouble's sake, while others depicted them as heroes, akin to the gangsters and cowboys featured in the popular films of the day. To most, however, they were simply victims of the deprived social conditions into which they were born and subsequently raised.

Whichever way one viewed them, the Rude Boys were an established part of Jamaican life and had been around long before the glut of releases which drew attention to there activities. The main reason for the sudden interest was the explosion of violence during the summer of 1966, undoubtedly agitated to a large degree by the exceptionally hot weather. By October, following six deaths over the preceding three months, the Jamaican government declared a state of emergency and instructed the police and military to cordon off the trouble zone in Kingston and enforce a 10pm to 6am curfew.

The fact that this period coincides with one of the major transformations in Jamaican music is no coincidence.[sic] The heat which had made tempers become frayed had also made dancing to Ska an exhausting experience and it was a natural progression to slow the tempo of the music. Eventually the rhythm slowed to such an extent that it became a completely new sound - Ska had been replaced by Rocksteady.

By early 1967, both the weather and tempers had cooled and the Rude Boy theme became less frequent in song lyrics. Over the years that followed, Rude Boys were rarely mentioned and despite the succes of Perry Hanzell's film, `The Harder They Come', which starred Jimmy Cliff as the doomed anti-hero, 'Ivanhoe Martin Rhygin', they featured only occasionally in songs such as the slicker's `Johnny Too Bad'.

Towards the end of the seventies, British Ska bands such as The Specials and Madness re-invented the image of the Rude Boy, presenting him as a fun-loving young man, attired in a stylish two-tone suit and a pork-pie hat, more akin to the Mods of the sixties than [to] the original Jamaican version. The British Rude Boy was not to last, however, and following the demise of the Ska revival, he quickly vanished. Since then, Rude Boys seem to have been all but forgotten outside Jamaica ... until now!

Fashion: What is with the narrow-brim hats, dark suits and narrow ties?
This is rude boy fashion from Jamaica in the 1960s.
Jamie Mowder in NYC writes about ska fashion:


Maybe the "dark suit and pork-pie hat" thing comes from people trying to look like Jerry Dammers from those old Specials album covers. And *he* was probably trying to look like "Walt Jabsco", the cartoon guy from the 2 Tone label design. And Walt was (so I've read) modeled after the way Peter Tosh looked on the cover of the `Wailing Wailers' album from Studio One.


Dancing: What is skanking?

Skanking is the *canonical* ska dance. Being canonical doesn't make it the only or One True ska dance; it is, however, the standard dance these days. Skanking involves angular pumping of legs and arms, with knees and elbows bent.

The original *official* ska dance was called "*The Ska*." This dance originated in Jamaica and was the dance one did at ska shows. It is not as punk-influenced as contemporary skanking. Jeremy D. Mushlin described it as:

Not like jamming your elbow to your opposite knee back and forth, but sort of like the milk-the-cow, do the monkey sort of thing ...



Guido van Breda has turned up a great series of still shots of *Ronnie and Jeanette* - *the couple who taught New York the Ska*, who visited the 1964 World's Fair in New York with Jamaican musicians Byron Lee and The Dragonaires, Jimmy Cliff and Prince Buster. Let Ronnie and Jeannette show you how to dance the ska, at http://www.dataweb.nl/~vanbreda/pictparade.html.



Controversy now rages over the propriety of slamming, moshing, body-passing and stage-diving at ska concerts. These dances, while wildy popular with some, are reviled by more traditional types. However, Jay Vidheecharoen, jvidhee@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, wisely points out that "Stage diving on top of people who are skankin' isn't too smart..."