Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
Madness performing in 2005
The Specials
Fishbone playing in Los Angeles
Desorden Publico, which are from Caracas, Venezuela formed in 1985.
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At 10,990 square kilometres (4,240 sq mi), it is the third largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about 145 km (90 mi) south of Cuba, 191 km (119 mi) west of Hispaniola, and 215 km (134 mi) south-east of the Cayman Islands.
Statue of Cristopher Columbus in St. Ann Parish
Henry Morgan was a Caribbean pirate, privateer, plantation owner and slaveholder; he had first come to the West Indies as an indentured servant, like most of the early English colonists.
Harbour Street, Kingston, c. 1820
Marcus Garvey, father of the Back to Africa Movement and Jamaica's first National Hero
