Oi ! Band Controversy

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The eventual crossover of music created a few new genres and the most notable of them being Oi! And Two Tone. Oi! irritated the early Skinheads due to the over politicization of the music. This caused a major split in the Skinhead subculture with the opposition vocally separating themselves from this new music. They opposed now coined themselves as “traditional Skinheads”. Eventually the Oi! movement ended up catching the attention of members from the National Front which lead to creating quite a storm of controversy. This marks the initial discourse shift, further splitting the Skinhead subculture apart in two very different directions.
Oi! Bands began gaining popularity because it was an answer against the current commercialization of punk rock at the time. Around 1976, a band called Skrewdriver took the scene by storm. The band was founded by front man Ian Stuart in Lancashire, England. Skrewdriver initially started out as a Punk band but quickly …show more content…

Most complied and quickly rose to the occasion but Skrewdriver refused to do so claiming they had no political affiliations. The National Front continued their recruitment and decided to change their approach in hopes of drawing in new people. According to Bob Edwards, the National Front “ pushed for an internationalization of the Skinhead movement in terms of a sort of alliance between skinheads worldwide, utilizing ‘love instead of hate, showing acceptance toward the skinhead where no one else did”’. The article also states, “ this was an attempt to reframe its message from one of overt hate to one of self-love and collective defense of the white race.” This is a clear attempt of transcoding the term Skinhead by the radical right movement into an allegory of

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