Desmond Dekker & the Aces, "Israelites" from King of Ska (T.L.A.M.)
Skammentary: I've deigned to include a few reggae numbers in this year's celebration of SKApril because they are songs I enjoy & because reggae developed out of ska. In many ways, reggae often remains closer to the original Jamaican ska than the third-wave ska punk that I love so dearly. (Where does "Israelites" fit on the ska-reggae "spectrum"? For my money, "Israelites" is a ska song, but I wouldn't pick a fight with anyone who described it as a reggae song. An earlier, no less murky meditation on this point: Wayback Machine.) Ska is a genre, not the work of any single individual or sound system. SKApril must be as broad as ska itself, from early ska to 2-Tone to ska-core to the occasional bit of reggae. Don't hate, rude boys & rude girls, just skank.
I debated whether to use the subtitle "REGGAEpril" or "REGGApril." The latter makes more sense when written, the former when verbalized. In choosing REGGAEpril, I've taken the opposite tack from SKApril, which works in writing but not when spoken, in that this requires mispronouncing either ska or April.
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