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What the f…k is Oi! ?
I have been gathering my thoughts on what Oi! culture, skinheads, and punks mean to me for a long time. And I will probably continue to do so for a while, especially because it’s a vast subject and addressing it requires debunking many myths and misconceptions. Starting with the association of skinheads with aggressive racists and fascists. The extent of manipulation that has taken place here is evident to anyone who knows the black roots of the skinhead movement.
This culture has existed for over 50 years. Symbolically, the beginning of skins is often considered to be the year 1969 when ships carrying immigrants from Jamaica arrived in England, and British hard mods encountered Jamaican Rude Boys, who were a mix of dandies and gangsters from the poor neighborhoods of Kingston, Jamaica.
In the second half of the 1970s, skinhead culture increasingly intertwined with punk culture. Starting from mutual hostility, these two styles began to merge more and more, resulting in the style of Oi! and street punk. Oi! is not only a style of music and a specific (street, as it is currently referred to) dress style in music and life. As Oi! bands often sing, “it’s not a fashion, it’s a way of life.”
Oi! is precisely about life on the streets, about hard and poorly paid work, about the lack of hope in impoverished neighborhoods. But it’s also about pride, “I’m proud of…