Ska
Ska is a fast, upbeat Jamaican style with a walking bass line, horns and guitar or piano chords chopped on the offbeat.
It appeared in Jamaica in the late 1950s, mixing Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues, and it later slowed down into rocksteady and reggae. Ska came back in Britain in the late 1970s as the punk-influenced 2 Tone movement, and again in the United States in the 1990s as ska punk. Its speed and bright horn lines are what separate it from reggae.
Artists it is known for: The Skatalites, Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, The Specials.
- Family
- Reggae & Caribbean
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Jamaica, late 1950s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,300 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have ska among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Ska artists
Sublime
Descendents
The Stranglers
Madness
Bad Religion
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Rancid
NOFX
Operation IvyThe ska artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.