What makes the ska such an infectious musical element even in the 21st Century? The Ska like Mento before it was really born out of a combining musical elements of both Mento and jazz, you have only got to listen the instrumental recording of the The Skatalites band to hear the jazz riff of horns and the rhythm section of guitars and bass. With the popularity of American R&B artists like Fats Domino and Roscoe Gordon, many Jamaican producers would incorporated the 12 bar jazz blues chord progressions and boogie bass lines mixed with Mento guitar rhythms! Within the tunes produced by the the sound systems owners, they placed increasing emphasis on the offbeat rhythms of Mento jazz up with a horn section. The ska era and lyrics really reflected the life and times of the Rude Boys that didn't go down too well with upper middle class people of Jamaican society yet some of these same middle class employed some of the rude boys as as their bodyguards, and guess what! They even like a bit of crudeness now and again! What we have to take into consideration is the fact that the Ska was the music that really put Jamaica on the musical map! In month of January 1994 the American Billboard music industrial trade magazine with it's perceptive conceptions of musical styles, had the name, Ska showing on it's front cover as the next big thing in music! | | The US Billboard publishers was a whole thirty four years too late with their awareness of the Ska genre. The Ska has always been a big thing right from it’s first inscription on to the musical platter. The author states that the Ska ranks in parallel with the first man who walked on the moon back in 1969 as one of the great achievements of the 60's.The epic intrusion of both these pragmatisms will always be remembered and discussed the world over again and again into the zenith of infinity. Yea! What makes the Ska such an infectious musical element still lives! |
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