Skanking is a form of dancing practiced in the
ska,
ska-
punk,
hardcore punk,
reggae, drum and bass, and other
music scenes. The dance style originated in the 1950s or 1960s at Jamaican dance halls, where
ska music was played. When
ska became popular amongst British mods and
skinheads of the 1960s, these UK youth adopted these types of dances and altered them. The dancing style was revived during the 1970s and 1980s
2 Tone era, and has been adopted by some individuals in the
hardcore punk subculture. Originally,
skanking consisted of a ?running man? motion of the legs to
the beat while alternating bent-elbow fist-punches, left and right. Over time, variations emerged. The
punk version
… Read more features a
sharp striking-out look with the arms and is sometimes used in moshing to knock around others doing the same. However, this is rarely seen as an act of true aggression but rather a consensual release of emotion.
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 offbeat. 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.
Music historians typically divide the history of
ska into three periods:
… Read more the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s; the
2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain, which fused Jamaican
ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of
punk rock forming
ska-
punk; and third wave
ska, which involved
bands from a wide range of countries around the world, in the late 1980s and 1990s.
2 tone is a genre of
ska music that fused traditional Jamaican
ska music with elements of
punk rock and new wave
music. Its name derives from
2 Tone Records, a record label founded in 1979 by Jerry Dammers of
The Specials, and references a desire to transcend and defuse racial tensions in Thatcher-era Britain. Many two-tone groups, such as
The Specials,
The Selecter, and
The Beat featured a mix of black, white, and multiracial people. It was part of the second wave of
ska music and it influenced the third wave
ska and
ska-
punk movements. The two-tone sound originated among young musicians in Coventry in the West Midlands of England, who grew up listening to 1960s Jamaican
music.
… Read more They combined influences from
ska,
reggae, and
rocksteady with elements of
punk rock and new wave.
Bands considered part of the genre include
The Specials,
The Selecter, Madness,
The Beat,
Bad Manners, The Bodysnatchers, and Akrylykz.
The Specials' keyboard player Jerry Dammers coined the term "two-tone". Dammers, with the assistance of Horace Panter and graphic designer John "Teflon" Sims, developed the iconic Walt Jabsco logo (a man in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, pork pie hat, white socks, and black loafers) to represent the two-tone genre. The logo, based on an early album-cover photo of Peter Tosh, included an added black-and-white check pattern.
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