One Drop Fourteen
Someone is losing his brain...
This week we return to Ska - for most long-standing reggae listeners, the first sound to crossover from Jamaican stations to UK and the rest of the world. The sound is celebrated in fine style by poet Keiron Higgins (check out his video performance too!), and is accompanied by an elegy for the great Prince Buster.
We also bring you the rudest of the rude - Prince Buster’s lyrically unacceptable ‘The Ten Commandments’ from 1967. For balance, we also bring you the stinging response from Princess Buster and her Jamaicans ‘The Ten Commandments (from Woman to Man')’. These days, Prince Buster would probably be cancelled….but he gets a chance to justify himself in a 1998 radio interview with the great David Rodigan, which we also bring you.
Ska‘d For Life
I wasn’t born in 1969 but when i hear the music i feel just fine that infectious Jamaican brassy beat with 2 docs on I start to move my feet what is this music I hear you calling from afar? Ladies and gents: this is Ska The braces are on, am shaving my hair working on that rudeboy stare but tonight there’ll be no fights as i’m out there jamming to The Skatalites! Bob wasn’t always rasta you know he once sang a ska cover of “go Jimmy go” traded into the suits for authentic dreads rebel power and less fashionable threads Whether you’re a disciple of Prince Buster or a fan of Terry Hall there‘s No Bad Manners here This music is my love, a free for all A skanking class, working class “Beat” There’s too much pressure But they call it madness out here on the floor with one step beyond we ask for more more more Trojan set the scene in the UK but we gotta show love to STUDIO ONE way back in the day Windrush Jamaican youth and a British working class formed in a culture that’s built to last Two-tone rocked against racism a unity formed in black and white and been a skinhead meant you didn‘t belong to the ultra-right So dust off that liquidator ‘45 and bring that back dancefloor back alive punks, skins, and attentive ears you all know the drill let’s take that train the last train to Ska-ville
Keiron Higgins
Watch Keiron Higgins perform 'Ska'd For Life'
Listen to Prince Buster’s ‘The Ten Commandments’…
…and to Princess Buster and Her Jamaicans come right back at The Prince
Hear Buster’s 1998 interview with reggae DJ and historian David Rodigan
Elegy for Prince Buster
The rudest of boys
is now ghost dancing,
issuing his own
Ten Commandments, showing
the company of the skies
how to whine an’ grine.
Andy Jackson