2 Tone and the Jamaican source

Coventry band formed 1977 (originally the Coventry Automatics) and flagship act of Jerry Dammers's 2 Tone label; their multiracial line-up revived Jamaican ska for late-1970s/early-1980s Britain, and the 1981 UK number one 'Ghost Town' captured recession-era urban unrest as it topped the charts amid inner-city riots. A key node in the Jamaica-to-Britain ska diaspora (Wikipedia 'The Specials'; The Guardian; BBC).

Singer and actress (born Belinda Magnus, 1953) who fronted The Selecter and became the leading woman of the 2 Tone movement; her memoir 'Black by Design' documents the mixed-race British experience behind the ska revival, and she was appointed OBE in 2022. A prominent diaspora voice in British reggae/ska (Wikipedia 'Pauline Black'; BBC).

Independent label founded in 1979 by Jerry Dammers of the Specials, backed by Chrysalis Records and based on Albany Road in Earlsdon, Coventry; it released ska-revival records by the Specials, Madness and the Selecter that consciously drew on Jamaican ska, becoming defunct in 1986.

North London band formed 1976 who took their name from a Prince Buster song and debuted on Jerry Dammers's 2 Tone label with 'The Prince' (1979), a tribute to Buster; though they moved into pop, their early 'nutty boy' sound was rooted in Jamaican ska and bluebeat, making them a mass-market conduit for Jamaican music in Britain (Wikipedia 'Madness'; BBC).

Cecil Bustamante Campbell (24 May 1938 - 8 September 2016) came up working for Coxsone Dodd's sound — as security, handling money, sourcing records, then selecting — before building his own, Voice of the People, which within a short time was a genuine rival to both Coxsone and Duke Reid. That progression is the whole apprenticeship system in one career. In 1961 he produced the Folkes Brothers' "Oh Carolina" on his Wild Bells label, with Count Ossie's drummers on it, putting Rastafari percussion onto a commercial Jamaican record for the first time; it was licensed to Blue Beat in Britain, the label that became synonymous with 1960s ska. "Madness" (1963), "One Step Beyond" (1964) and "Al Capone" — which reached number 18 in Britain in 1967 — followed, along with the Judge Dread records and a long, partly staged feud with Derrick Morgan. He met Muhammad Ali in 1964 and joined the Nation of Islam, later issuing records on an Islam imprint. The ska revival a decade after his peak took its name and much of its manner from him: Madness named themselves for his record and made their debut single a tribute, and the Specials covered him. He died in Miami. The date of "Oh Carolina" is unsettled: 1960 and 1961 both circulate, and the reference works give 1961. Buster described how pre-independence radio payola worked against sound-system-affiliated producers: stations required "requests" to justify airplay, but with a glut of American singles to get through, and staff reportedly on record-company retainers, local producers had no realistic way to compete for airtime. In the mid-1960s the American label King Records, prompted by James Brown after he discovered Buster's music on a Jamaica trip, sought the US rights to Buster's catalogue; the deal collapsed over publishing terms, which Buster, by then an outspoken Nation of Islam figure, believed was no accident. In 1967 Philips gave his "Ten Commandments of Man" a US release that debuted at number 35 on the Cashbox chart.

West Midlands city where Jerry Dammers taught himself ska from Jamaican records in a flat on Albany Road, Earlsdon, in 1977, laying the groundwork for 2 Tone Records and the Specials; the city's ska heritage is now marked by a dedicated 2 Tone museum.

Coventry 2 Tone band formed 1979, fronted by Pauline Black, whose 1979 debut single 'On My Radio' reached the UK top ten; one of the most prominent racially mixed bands of the ska-revival, they carried Jamaican ska and rocksteady into British pop while foregrounding anti-racist politics (Wikipedia 'The Selecter'; Pauline Black 'Black by Design').

Keyboardist, songwriter and founder of The Specials and the 2 Tone record label (1979), effectively the architect of Britain's ska-revival movement; he later wrote the anti-apartheid anthem 'Free Nelson Mandela' (1984). Central figure in transplanting Jamaican ska into British youth culture (Wikipedia 'Jerry Dammers'; The Guardian).

The house band that gave ska its shape — a working group of Jamaica's finest jazz-schooled players, most of them alumni of the Alpha Boys School, assembled around 1964 and cutting the instrumental and backing sessions that defined Studio One's era. Tommy McCook, Don Drummond, Roland Alphonso, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore, Lester Sterling, Jah Jerry, Jackie Mittoo, Lloyd Brevett and Lloyd Knibb between them played on an enormous share of the period's records. The original band lasted only about fourteen months before splintering, but its playing underpins the entire ska canon.