2 Tone
Late-1970s Britain looked back to Jamaican ska and rocksteady and smashed them into punk, new wave and multiracial youth politics. 2 Tone was a revival and a hybrid, not Jamaica’s next evolutionary step.
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2 Tone took shape around Coventry in 1979, with Jerry Dammers’ label and bands including The Specials and The Selecter drawing explicitly from 1960s Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae while playing inside Britain’s post-punk moment. Jamaican songs, riffs and musicians were part of the sound, but so were punk economy, British accents and the politics of racism, unemployment and the National Front. The label’s black-and-white visual identity became inseparable from its multiracial message, and the 1979 2 Tone Tour quickly turned a local network into a national phenomenon. Calling it a ska revival is useful, but incomplete: it was also a new British hybrid built from older Jamaican music and contemporary British youth culture.
Where the history is argued
- 2 Tone is sometimes treated as synonymous with all second-wave ska, but the label/movement was a specific British network and not every ska-revival band was a 2 Tone act.
How they stand with the others
Returned to2 Tone deliberately revived Jamaican ska and rocksteady repertoire and imagery.
Mixed withPunk, new wave and British social politics made the result a new movement rather than a period recreation.
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Last checked 1 September 2026