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SKA CUBANO

 Ska! The compulsively danceable sound that rocked the clubs of Jamaica in the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s and opened the way for world domination by reggae. (Bob Marley and his Wailers, for instance, started life as a ska band.)

 Reflecting the then prolific intercourse between the two islands, a big element of the ska of the ‘60’s was Cuban. Many of the prophets of ska (Rolando Alfonso, Laurel Aitken,) originated from Cuba; so did the tunes of many of its biggest hits.

Jamaican immigration into Cuba (particularly the eastern provinces) in the 1920s & 1930s also ensured Cuban cultural affinity with Jamaica, reflected in the huge popularity of Spanish versions of Jamaican calypsos in the 1950s.

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 sharply reduced Cuban/Jamaican cultural interaction and although earlier Jamaican traditions were preserved in isolated pockets, ska never took root in Cuba.                                                                                                                                                

The emergence of Ska-Cubano is therefore the creation of alternative cultural history. The mission was led by Peter Scott, president of Linea 1, and Natty Bo of London ska band, "Top Cats", who went to Santiago de Cuba, the Caribbean capital of the east (oriente) of Cuba and the cradle of almost all the best Cuban music, to preach ska in Santiago and Guantanamo. Many parties and countless bottles of rum later, ska culture were firmly established, with great new arrangements of Cuban classics and several bands performing to a growing following. The cream of the musicians then came together to form a ska supergroup, and here is the result: en exhilarating new fusion, a completely new direction, but a music that is recognisably, irrepressibly, Cuban, Ska-Cubano.