Origins of ska

Ska is an old form of music. It comes from the 1950s and early 1960s Jamaica. The population was very poor; but they had a rich inheritance of music and rhythms from neighboring islands and from ancestral homelands in Africa. When you listen to Ska, it is very easy to hear the accent beat (also called the back beat--beat hits on 2 and 4 in four beat time). This beat is the foundation of many kinds of music (eg; rock and roll, some jazz, reggae, rocksteady, dancehall, mod, and others).


But, Ska's influence was not strictly built upon those solid foundations. Ska came from the street kids who were influenced by popular culture. During these times of hardship and want, many were drawn to crime. These young kids-of-the-street (today we would call them punks, but this is before the punk revolution in the 1970s) had little respect for law enforcement and did not follow the same set of rules that guided their parents. It is because of this direspect from the Ska kids that the older people coined a phrase that solidified and popularized the Ska movement--Rude Boy. This phrase was taken and worn like a badge of honor by the Ska kids. Later it was shorted to Rudie (a.k.a. Rudy).
How did popular culture influence Ska? No matter how poor the people were or how hard times were, people would take time to watch the latest movies from America. The most popular movies for the Ska kids included gangster films. This theme was central to their disregard for the law. The gangster theme and other movie themes show up in the music of the time: Al Capone - Prince Buster; Guns of Navarone - Skatalites and others.