¿Fourth Wave? Meet Ska’s New Latino Generation
There are few things that the music industry loves more than declaring something as DEAD.
Rock is dead. Punk is dead. Vinyl is dead.
Ska has died several times.
And yet, every couple of decades somebody picks up a guitar, chops at the offbeat, adds a horn section, and suddenly there are a hundred sweaty kids thrashing and skanking away in a backyard like nobody bothered to tell them the funeral already happened.
Last Saturday I was running the board at yet another Backyard Party show, watching 18-year-old Natalia Inez and her band power through a set of high-energy ska to a packed house, when something clicked. I grew up in Orange County during the “Third Wave” ska explosion of the '90s. Ska was everywhere. It was on MTV. It was at local clubs. It was mixed into punk and grunge shows. You couldn't throw a pair of suspenders in Orange County without hitting somebody carrying a trombone.
Thirty years later, I’m standing here, watching another generation discover the same old recipe, only a few miles north of where it happened last time. The crowd and bands look pretty much the same. Only this time, the music has a decidedly different flavor. The secret ingredient? Spanish.
Jamaica → England → Orange County → Orange County??
Here's a criminally abbreviated history of ska:
It starts in Jamaica in the early ‘60s, when Jamaican musicians mixed Caribbean sounds with American jazz and R&B. See: The Skatalites, Desmond Dekkar, Prince Buster.
England got hold of it next. The Specials, The Selecter, and Madness mixed ska with punk, politics, working-class frustration and an intentionally multiracial identity. A few had hits that carried over into the international pop charts, and ska quickly became a recognized genre around the world.
LA had already developed a significant ska scene in the early '80s around bands like The Untouchables, The Boxboys, and Fishbone. But the ‘90s brought No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, and The Aquabats to the main stage, all from OC. Sublime was from just up the road in Long Beach. Ska, punk, reggae, hardcore, and alternative rock were all sleeping together, and apparently nobody was using protection. The result was the massive Third Wave ska explosion.
For a brief and ridiculous period in American music, you could turn on MTV, and there was a good chance somebody would be holding a trumpet. The mainstream music industry had its fun, homogenized the entire genre, whitewashed it, played dress-up, made its money, and then moved on. Ska, as always - thankfully - did not.
Wait. That’s not right.
My original idea for this article was, "Hey, there's a new generation of Latino kids playing ska. Maybe this is the Fourth Wave."
But that’s not really accurate. Southern California's Latino ska underground has been happening for decades. In the '90s, LA already had bands blending punk, ska, mariachi, salsa, and rock en español into something that didn't fit particularly neatly into any of those categories. And when the terribly commercial Third Wave fizzled out, the ska en español culture kept going.
In 2012, the LA Times reported on another ska boom stretching through South LA, southeast LA County, Orange County, and the Inland Empire. Many of the musicians were young Mexican and Central American Americans mixing ska with punk, reggae, cumbia and rock en español. Most were unsigned. Many were still in their teens and early twenties.
One of the bands mentioned in that article was Los Chiles Verdes. Remember that name. We'll be coming back to them in a minute.
Now what?
Running an all-ages venue gives me a great vantage point for watching what young musicians are actually doing, playing, and listening to. Over the last year alone, we’ve put nearly 500 bands on stages, patios, and backyard porches across the east side of LA - and the acts are becoming increasingly focused on ska. Band nerds become rockstars, and the communal dance move mainly involves slowly running in a circle and/or staring at the ground with your elbows out. It’s a low bar, and a lot of fun.
Natalia, from Santa Ana, fronts a ridiculously young band that bounces between ska, punk, alternative rock, and Latin music like somebody forgot to tell them those things belong in different sections of the record store. Good.
During a recent show, she stopped and talked to the crowd about how there isn't enough Spanish rock happening among younger LA bands and audiences. Then she went back to playing it. That's the part that stuck with me. There's a big difference between being nostalgic and deciding to do, or better yet, make something.
Last Saturday, watching Natalia, Loach, Squatchy, and Skidwizard play at BYP, I started thinking about the scene I grew up around in Orange County and how these things actually happen. Nobody announces that there’s a new scene starting. There isn't a meeting. At some point enough kids start bands, enough bands start sharing stages, and enough people start showing up. That’s it. Maybe we're at some point again now?
What’s next?
I don’t want to make it sound like Latino musicians suddenly discovered ska in 2026. They didn't. Los Chiles Verdes were playing it when Natalia was still a toddler. And before them came decades of other bands from LA's Latino underground and much larger Mexican and Latin American ska scenes.
The Latino part isn't what's new. The generation is.
And that's where things get interesting. Young musicians are inheriting a musical culture that never disappeared while simultaneously growing up with access to the entire history of music sitting in their pockets. The Specials can live next to Panteón Rococó. Sublime next to Caifanes. Punk next to cumbia. English next to Spanish. For a teenage music fan in 2026, genre boundaries and titles are about as useful as a plastic Tower Records artist divider. (Us olds will get that reference)
I have no idea if we're actually witnessing the beginning of some historically significant Fourth Wave of ska. I think so. I hope so. Maybe twenty years from now somebody will write a very serious book explaining exactly when and how it started. They'll identify the important records and bands and venues. They'll interview everybody who was there. And they’ll also interview people who weren't there at all but will confidently explain what it was like. Tell me I’m wrong.
Told You So.
A gift to support my argument: on September 19, Backyard Party and The Neighborhood Orchestra are throwing a show with Los Chiles Verdes and The Leftover Ska at The Smell in downtown LA.
Where Los Chiles Verdes provide a direct connection to the Southern California Latino ska underground that was already thriving more than a decade ago, The Leftover Ska is part of the scene happening right now. Come see the whole thing for yourself and let me know if I’m nuts.
Something is happening here, and Orange County is involved again. Of fucking course it is. Call it Fourth Wave. Call it ska en español. Call it whatever the kids playing it decide to call it next. But don’t call it a comeback. We’re just getting our first look at what’s next.
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