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The Story of Skinheads  with Don Letts

Documentaries

Music: Rock & Indie

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

The Story of Skinhead with Don Letts

14/10/2016

BBC Four - The Story of Skinheads  with Don Letts

Don Letts looks at the very particular and provocative British subculture of skinhead.

Don Letts explores how the skinhead subculture has become associated with street fighting and racism, but had its origins in a moment of musical and multicultural harmony.

Documentary in which director and DJ Don Letts looks at a very particular and very provocative British subculture - skinhead. He explores how skinhead has become associated with street fighting, trouble on the football terraces and violent racism in the public consciousness in Britain and around the world, but reveals that its origins lie in a cultural coming together that could not be further from its tarnished image. 

Don shows in fascinating detail how the roots of skinhead are in a brilliant cultural collision between the young white working-class kids and their Jamaican counterparts in British inner cities, a moment of multicultural harmony. He traces the history of skinhead from the late 60s to the present, looking at the music and styles of skinhead from the reggae-influenced ska to the punk-influenced Oi. Throughout Don meets people who were committed members of various skinhead scenes, and he considers the conflicts and the contradictions that skinhead has attracted over five decades.

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