“It was a sense of pride in where we were.”Fittingly then, one of the most inspiring periods in postwar youth culture is to be given pride of place during Coventry’s forthcoming city of culture 2021 celebrations. Forty years after mixed-race Coventry bands such as the Specials and the Selecter blazed a pioneering trail, issues of race, culture and national identity are once again polarising politics. Named after the record label to which the groups belonged, the two-tone movement took on similar questions in its own unique style. In 1979, three two-tone bands featured in a single edition of the programme. Prefiguring a genuinely diverse, multicultural vision of Britain, two-tone was way ahead of its time.

Source: The Guardian February 11, 2021 18:38 UTC