Ska and reggae in Hong Kong: how the Red Stripes are driving the city’s emerging scene
The 10-piece band have played with ska stars, including Neville Staple from The Specials and Prince Buster’s son Sultan Ali, in front of tens of thousands at festivals in Asia, and have just released an album, ‘In the Ska East’
With soundchecks complete, it’s cramped in the confined and dimly lit backstage area at Grappa’s Cellar in Central, as musicians make last-minute preparations for a special night of ska music.
“We’ve created a new scene; an emerging ska and reggae movement in Hong Kong,” says Fred Croft, lead singer of the Red Stripes, the city’s own 10-piece ska and reggae ensemble. It’s early December and the band are headlining a night at the Italian restaurant and live music bar, in the basement of Jardine House.
There is an emerging ska scene in Hong Kong, and this underground venue is already full, with about 500 devotees anticipating a loud, dynamic and fun night out.
“Tonight is a testament to what we have achieved – it’s been a five-year journey,” says Croft, dressed in an immaculate grey pinstripe suit with lurid braces and highly polished brogues.
It’s a big night for the Red Stripes because it’s the launch event for their debut album, In the Ska East, already included in the top 20 new releases of 2017 by a prestigious international online ska music magazine based in Britain. Do the Dog Skazine commended the album, recorded at Billboard Studio in Central, as “bursting with highly danceable 2 tone & trad ska”.
Ska music materialised in Jamaica in the 1960s, a loose fusion of reggae, calypso and American jazz, and became associated with a fashionable gangster-style subculture driven by young aficionados, known as rude boys. They were generally impoverished Jamaican teens who were recruited by sound system operators (mobile DJs) to crash each other’s street dances.