Ska originated in Jamaica in the late Fifties and combined Caribbean
mento and calypso with American jazz and r 'n' b. Ska developed in the
Sixties with artists such as Prince Buster, Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd, and
Duke Reid who formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and
then began recording their own songs. Ska was popular with British mods
and was later adopted by many skinheads. As music changed in the US, so
did ska. In 1965 and 1966, when American soul music became slower and
smoother, ska changed its sound accordingly and developed into
rocksteady before evolving again from 1968 into reggae.