The Associated Social Identities and Evolution of Ska Music

When many Americans think of ska music, they think of the up-tempo, aggressive ska punk of the 1990s from bands such as Sublime and Rancid. In fact there is a very interesting history of how the ska punk of the nineties came to be and the great transformation it has taken since its original form. Ska music made its way from Jamaica in the 1960s, to Great Britain in the 1970s and finally to the United States in the 1990s. At each location and time, ska played an integral role in forming social identity. I will focus on what is known as the first wave, which originally took place in Kingston, Jamaica. Ska was created and grew in popularity there in the late 1950s around the same time the country declared independence from the United Kingdom.
The lyrics and sound of the music reflect a large majority of Jamaicans who became oppressed by the country’s economic ruins following their liberation. Ska ultimately helped these disheartened people by providing them an instrument to express their frustrations and struggles. Each culture that encountered ska used it to “…fulfill a perpetual desire for identity, need for community, and grant the power to change social and political structures across the postnational Atlantic” (Stambuli 24). Each society embraced the music and eventually adapted it to form new sounds that would develop into the genre we recognize today.
Ska music evolved alongside the cultural and economic changes that started after World War II as the British Empire’s control over Jamaica started to weaken. World War II was perhaps the single most influential event in the evolution of ska and the emerging extensive popularity of the music ("History of Ska"). Jamaicans began to have an intensifying desire for freedom and independence and in 1962 Britain agreed to grant independence to Jamaica, making it a self-governing entity ("History of Ska"). The music at this point in time suggested the growing confidence and optimistic aspirations of the Jamaican people (Hreschak). These are lyrics from the song “Freedom sounds” by The Skatalites:
Here we stand freedom sounds
A echo for so long
Forget your troubles
Forget your worries
Come and jump and dance
And make merriment
Music brought many people together because it was one of the most affordable, enjoyable forms of social interaction in the country. Clement Seymore Dodd was a producer who combined American elements of music with traditional Jamaican styles because he felt this would enable Jamaican artists to have creative control over a new style of music ("Ska a Brief History"). Cecil Bustamente Campbell, who would later become known as Prince Buster, capitalized on Dodd’s innovations and was one of the first artists who created the original sound of ska (Hreschak). Prince Buster and other artists were able to create music that was very motivated, expressive, and genuine ("History of Ska"). The labels and sound systems he created and developed in the early 1960's clearly reflect the rise of Christianity, Baptism, and Buster’s belief in afro-centrism. Titles such as "Wildbells", "Islam", "Soulville Center" and "Voice of the People", clearly express his beliefs. He felt he had a moral commitment to his native Jamaican people and used ska music to be their spokesperson and defender (Hreschak). “Buster's early recordings were, both musically and psychologically, underscored by a current of rebel attitude tinged with religious feeling, as well as an inextricable combination of pagan cultures inherited from the African slaves and Biblic fundamentalism” (Hreschak). Prince Buster used his music to voice his own and the common opinions and attitudes of many of his fellow Jamaicans as they grappled with defining their individualism and national identity. His beliefs did not take away from his musical performances, and in fact allowed people to identify with him and each other (Hreschak).
Dodd had combined sounds of Mento, a native Jamaican style of calypso, with the sounds of American Jazz and Blues from the likes of Ray Charles, Count Basie, Fats Domino and Duke Ellington. Energetic sounds from instruments such as the trombone, guitar, piano, bass, drums, tenor saxophone, and trumpet were merged together to created a pleasant sounding, upbeat danceable rhythm. Buster used more of a “shuffle” style that combined the original mento sounds with a jazzy, bop and R&B sound. Moreover, he and the new generation of music producers gently altered the rhythmic emphasis and merged it with Rastafarian drummers' 'burru' rhythms. Buster then had his guitarist emphasize the after beat instead of the downbeat, an essential ingredient that completed the creation of ska (Hreschak). Julian Jingles provides an excellent description:
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 is therefore carrying the blues and swing beats of the American music, and the guitar is expressing the mento sound. (qtd in Hreschak)
The Skatalites, a group containing some of the best jazz and Jamaican musicians of the time, enhanced this sound by making the music even more vivacious. They are still known and remembered as one of the most famous Jamaican ska bands because of their distinct sound that was integral to the shaping of the musical style (Hreschak). The group’s saxophonist, Tommy McCook, explains:
The drop, the 2nd and 4th beat where the drum dropped was the key to it. In rhythm and blues it was the same drop, but also the ska was a little faster, and the background was different to r & b. The guitar was playing a different thing and the piano wasn't playing as much r & b just ska-ing strictly and keeping the music lively. It was a foundation really. It was a good vibe, and the singers wanted to show their appreciation of the beat, so we used to fire hard on that beat. When the horns weren't riffing, we would come in on the ska and add more weight to it. (qtd in Hreschak)
In the early 1960's the ghettos and slums of Jamaica were overcrowded with unemployed youth desperately and futilely seeking work. The young Jamaicans felt worthless and without the optimism that ska originally espoused. Although the “Rude Boy” term was created years earlier, these young Jamaicans now sought a common identity and pride in the face of their society’s overwhelming unemployment and poverty ("History of Ska"). This new and completely unique style created a community for all the Rude Boys who dressed in the same scruffy clothes and listened to the same ska music (Hreschak).
Ska constituted a cultural movement that emerged as a soundtrack to the complex daily life of working-class youth in urban Jamaica…ska found a readymade audience in the teeming shantytowns of Jamaican cities…ska would provide the pleasurable sound against the grind of rapid urbanization, poverty, and rural decline. For the young men and women who had to reassemble dislocated lives and family structures, ska and Jamaican popular culture more generally would provide the resources for creativity and resistance. (Heathcott 191)
Ska artists soon began to echo the Rude Boy style through their music. “Whereas bassnotes had once been played with a very free style, they now became transformed by the aggressive nature of the rudeboy style, and held a new level of tension” (Hreschak). The lyrics of the new ska music clearly portray the Rude Boy’s lifestyle, an underworld community for people who didn’t have much regard for the law. Many “Rudies” turned to lives of violence, crime, and trading illegal drugs (the most prominent of which was marijuana), as they were unable to earn a living in the music industry (Hreschak).
The Jamaican government declared a state of emergency after an explosion of violence and six deaths in the summer of 1966. The police and the military cordoned off the trouble zone in Kingston, and a curfew was enforced between 10pm and 6am (Hreschak). Academic Caribbean historian Horace Campbell wrote about the period between 1964 and 1967 when social and economic unrest was at its worst in Jamaican society:
Answering to the pseudonym "Rude Boy" [sic] and searching 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. (qtd. in Hreschak)
In the late 1960s many records were released in Jamaica that helped to create the Rude Boy reputation and image. “The fast-paced upbeat in the music made its listeners feel more active and combined with the lyrics to give them the motivation to take action against their oppressed lives” (Stambuli 26). Music producers made records containing lyrics that either criticized or supported the actions of these young men. But some people described them as dangerous thugs who caused trouble for no good reason, and others held them as heroes of the streets who refused to conform to the unfairness and lack of opportunities in their country. Artists mainly sang about how they were simply victims of the deprived social conditions in which they lived (Hreschak). In “Burnin’ And Lootin’”, The Wailers sing of these circumstances:
This morning I woke up in a curfew;
O God, I was a prisoner, too - yeah!
Could not recognize the faces standing over me;
They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality. Eh!
How many rivers do we have to cross,
Before we can talk to the boss? Eh!
All that we got, it seems we have lost;
We must have really paid the cost.
(That's why we gonna be)
Burnin' and a-lootin' tonight
The Wailers, a group that included famous ska/reggae/rocksteady artists such as Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, & Peter Tosh, rose to fame with their original groundbreaking records. Their lyrics and song titles reflected the troubles they themselves and other Rude Boys were forced to face growing up in Jamaica (Hreschak). The Wailers were trying to break through a societal barrier with their music. Some of the group’s artists already had confrontations with the law. Before the group formed, Tosh had been arrested and badly beaten together with Prince Buster and other artists on an anti-Rhodesia demonstration. Bunny Wailer was also imprisoned for almost the entire year of 1968 for the possession of marijuana and Marley served one month in jail for a similar offense ("The Wailers (reggae band)"). Marley had also spent a year in the United States during the civil rights movement and was heavily influenced by the intensity and energy of the riots and protests in the American cities. Upon retuning to Jamaica he was greatly inspired to begin making music in order to achieve social change ("The Wailers (reggae band)").
The Wailers rapidly gained popularity among the general public in spite of the fact they had a reputation among producers and businessmen as disorderly and difficult to work with. It seems that their style and music was something that their listeners could identify with. Marley began wearing dreads in 1967, reverted back to an afro for a short time, and then went back to dreadlocks ("The Wailers (reggae band)"). While other performers wore nice suits, shoes, and clothing, Marley came out on stage dressed in casual, rugged Rasta styled clothing and sandals similar to what other young Jamaicans and Rude Boys wore. By the mid-1960’s, when many of their most popular hits were released, the Rude Boys were already a well-established part of Jamaican life ("The Wailers (reggae band)").
Ska music, which combines traditional Caribbean rhythms with jazz, has heavily influenced and helped form social identity in three very different societies. Originating in Jamaica, it provided native youth a way to speak out and fight oppression. Ska music has become the first truly commercial Jamaican music and it has been named the national dance and official music of Jamaica (Hreschak). Just as the music provided young Jamaicans with a way to speak out and fight their oppression, working class youths in Britain would soon recreate ska and use it for the same purpose as the Rudies. Ska now stands as one of the most prevalent contemporary genres in the United States, but we have yet to see what social formation the music will develop.