Judge Dread: Music Hall Traditionalist or Postcolonial Hybrid

Abstract

Judge Dread (Alex Hughes) had nine top forty hits in the early 1970s. All were banned by the BBC. Almost all the music press ignored him. Hughes was white and working class; his most significant idea was to combine naughty remakes of nursery rhymes with ska and rock steady backing rhythms. Judge Dread's singles were a big hit with skinheads. By the mid-1970s, when the skinhead subculture had died out, Dread was releasing rude parodies of songs such as ‘Je t'aime … moi non plus’ and ‘Y Viva Espana’. This article argues that Hughes' work was founded in music-hall genres but also was influenced by the Jamaican rudeness tradition. Hughes can be understood as both a music-hall traditionalist and a postcolonial hybrid. His recordings helped to familiarise Britons with Jamaican music.