Prince Buster, Grandfather of Ska Music, Dies at 78

Prince Buster, the Jamaican musician widely celebrated as a grandfather of ska music, died in Miami on Thursday at the age of 78, the BBC and other outlets reported.

Buster was born Cecil Bustamente Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1938 and came to prominence there in the 1960s, pioneering the sound that would come to be known as ska — an emphatic, often frenetic brassy sound that is akin to reggae when it is slow and eminently danceable when it is fast. The prominent British ska groups of the 1980s — acts like Madness and the Specials — have been said to owe a musical debt to Buster.

He is survived by his wife and children.

[BBC]