Ska-P

Ska-P understood something very few people manage: that you can denounce the world and make people dance at the same time.

Their songs are pure accelerated ska, stadium choruses, trumpets and skipping guitars — pure party music, village fairground music — and yet every lyric is a punch thrown at capitalism, police brutality, fascism, the Church or power.

Nobody combined rage and joy so well.

From Vallecas to the world

Ska-P was born in 1994 in Vallecas, a working-class, combative neighbourhood of Madrid, and everything they are comes from there.

Even the spelling of the name says so. That "k" instead of the "c" is the way people from the neighbourhood have written "Vallekas" since the eighties, a symbol of working-class pride that also turns up in their album titles. It has been repeated a thousand times that "Ska-P" is pronounced like the Spanish word for escape and joins ska with punk, but it is worth saying it for what it is: a very widespread explanation the band has never confirmed.

They were not rich kids playing at revolution: they were neighbourhood boys making the music of their own people.

Their line-up always revolved around Pulpul, the voice and rhythm guitar, the soul of the group. And there was one member who played no instrument at all but who was key: Pipi, who joined in 1995, sang backing vocals and, above all, danced and worked the crowd dressed up as characters, turning every show into a political carnival. He stayed until December 2017.

Because a Ska-P concert is exactly that: half rally, half circus, half street party.

Ska that hits and lyrics that bite

The formula is as simple as it is hard to pull off.

Musically, Ska-P play extremely high-energy ska-punk: infectious rhythms, choruses to be shouted at the top of your lungs, that skipping Jamaican mixture that forces you to move.

And on top of that festive base they lay direct lyrics, with no metaphors, that go straight to the bone.

In 1996, "El vals del obrero" turned them into a phenomenon. The cover alone is a manifesto: a fat boss with a cigar, wrapped in banknotes, working a labourer like a puppet.

That record produced anthems that in Spain are sung even at village fiestas: "Cannabis", a pagan party in every sense; "Romero el madero", a devastating — and sadly still current — portrait of police brutality; "El gato López", their street-cat mascot.

Later records kept hitting hard. "Eurosis", from 1998, took aim at the arrival of the euro and at consumerism, at the Church, at the relationship between the police and drugs, and devoted a whole song to King Juan Carlos I. "Planeta Eskoria", from 2000, had Justice crucified on a dollar sign on its cover.

Ska-P held nothing back.

Making people think without stopping the dancing

And here is what makes them genuinely important, and not just fun.

Ska-P solved the old problem of protest music: almost always, the song with a message is solemn, heavy, boring, and only the already convinced can sit through it.

Ska-P did the opposite. They wrapped the harshest criticism in the most joyous music, and in that way slipped anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and anti-racist ideas into the heads of thousands of teenagers who had come only to jump around and have a good time.

You come out of a Ska-P concert sweaty, happy, hoarse from singing, and with a pile of questions going round about the world you live in.

That is their genius: they used the party as a Trojan horse. Like Rage Against the Machine in another language and another rhythm, they understood that the best place to slip in a dangerous idea is in the middle of a song people love to dance to.

Idols on this side of the ocean

And there is something that makes them especially ours: Ska-P is huge all across Latin America.

Their message and their neighbourhood party connected brutally well with the Latin American audience, which adopted them as its own.

They arrived for the first time in the late nineties, supporting Attaque 77 in Buenos Aires. Already on "Eurosis" they had included a song called "América Latina ¡¡libre!!" and a version of "Juan sin tierra", by Víctor Jara. On the "¡¡Que corra la voz!!" tour they travelled through Mexico — where they made their debut at Vive Latino — Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico.

They chose Buenos Aires to close their farewell tour of 2005, and donated the takings to Argentine organisations. When they were nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2013, they publicly turned the nomination down.

There are whole generations of kids on this side of the ocean who grew up singing "El vals del obrero" with a fist in the air.

The breaks

It is worth saying something almost nobody tells properly: Ska-P has not been a continuous band.

In 2005 they announced an indefinite break and signed off in Buenos Aires. They came back in 2008. In November 2014 they stopped again, this time because of Pulpul's tinnitus, that permanent ringing that ruins the trade for so many musicians. They returned in 2018 with "Game Over".

And since December 2023 they have been on a third indefinite break. Their last concert was on 12 November of that year, in Santiago de Chile.

There is a symmetry in that worth noting: the band from Vallecas chose Latin America to say goodbye, twice.

What to remember

Ska-P is the proof that conscience does not have to be boring, and that you can shake people in both senses of the word: make them dance and make them wake up.

If you put on "El vals del obrero", "Cannabis", "Romero el madero" or "Ñapa es", you will hear an unstoppable party with a razor-sharp message inside it, ska that lifts you out of your chair sung by men who really believed — and believe — in what they are shouting.

You may agree with their politics more or less, and they are openly left-wing with no half measures.

What cannot be denied is that they achieved something very rare: they made protest a carnival, and got a whole stadium jumping with a fist in the air without stopping smiling.

Few bands have made thinking and enjoying yourself the same thing. Ska-P did.

Sources

Ska-P, a Spanish ska punk band formed in 1994 in Vallecas (Madrid), with members from Madrid, Navarre and the Basque Country, according to their own official biography. Anti-establishment in outlook, their lyrics criticise capitalism, fascism, racism, police brutality and political and religious power. The "k" in the name alludes to the identity spelling "Vallekas", a symbol of working-class pride in the neighbourhood since the eighties, also present in titles such as "Kacikes" or "Planeta Eskoria"; the explanation that "Ska-P" is a play between "escape" and "ska punk" is very widespread but does not come from the band or from a citable source. The group has revolved around the singer and rhythm guitarist Pulpul (Roberto Gañán Ojea); Pipi (Ricardo Delgado) joined in 1995 as dancer, hype man and second voice, and left the band in December 2017. Their second album, "El vals del obrero" (21 March 1996), was an enormous success and included "El gato López", "Romero el madero" and "Cannabis"; it was followed by "Eurosis" (28 April 1998, with criticism of the arrival of the euro and of consumerism, of the Church and of the relationship between the police and drugs, and with "Simpático holgazán" dedicated to King Juan Carlos I; Billboard reported sales of some 180,000 copies in 1998, without confirmation from the certifying body) and "Planeta Eskoria" (2000, with a cover showing Justice nailed to the dollar symbol, in reference to the lyrics of "Mestizaje"). They first reached Latin America in the late nineties as support for Attaque 77 at the Estadio Obras in Buenos Aires; "Eurosis" included "América Latina ¡¡libre!!" and a version of "Juan sin tierra", by Víctor Jara; on the "¡¡Que corra la voz!!" tour (2002-2003) they travelled through Mexico — making their debut at Vive Latino — Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico. In 2013 they publicly turned down the Latin Grammy nomination for "99%". The band has had three periods: 1994-2005 (with their farewell concert in Buenos Aires on 12 October 2005), 2008-2014 (a second break announced in November 2014, later attributed to Pulpul's tinnitus) and 2018-2023, following the release of "Game Over"; on 4 December 2023 they announced a third indefinite break, their last concert having been on 12 November 2023 in Santiago de Chile. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from ska-p.com, Wikipedia, Science of Noise, El Universal, MariskalRock and other press coverage.