Ska
Early Jamaican popular music — fast, offbeat, brass-driven
Related
Ska is Jamaican popular music from the early 1960s: fast, with guitar and keys chopping short offbeat chords, brass (especially tenor sax) playing springy lines, and a busy walking bass.
It belongs with rocksteady and reggae in one lineage: ska fastest, rocksteady slower, reggae slower still with a heavier bass. The usual mistake is to call ska "fast reggae" — its brass writing, drum feel and dance steps have their own tradition; speed is only the surface difference.
Read deeper → reggae
Sources
- 斯卡的节奏特征与牙买加谱系，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Ska"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.