In 1985, Wayne Smith and King Jammy teamed up to create what is quite possibly the greatest dancehall riddim of all time. They called it Sleng Teng. They released a song with it, called “Under Mi Sleng Teng.” The rest is history.
Not only did Smith and Jammy create the first fully-electronic riddim, but they unleashed a true dancehall classic on us. According to legend, Smith discovered the famous Sleng Teng bass line while playing with the presets on a Casio MT-40 keyboard. The result was this sort of woozy, fuzzy bassline that would be tweaked and adapted into a million different tunes.
Here’s the Casio beat:
Here’s what happened when Smith and Jammy turned that Casio beat into a dancehall burner.
In the Jamaican music industry, producers generally will produce a single instrumental riddim and then numerous dancehall singers (confusingly called DJs) will record their own songs over that same riddim. So you might have 20 different songs all using the same riddim. Here’s the Sleng Teng riddim in the hands of Ninja Man, a legendary 80s DJ.
Here’s Terry Ganzie’s “Mi Gun Talk” over Sleng Teng. This is not tourist resort reggae music.
Sleng Teng wasn’t so much rediscovered in the 90s as much as it simply never went out of style. That’s when ragga jungle became popular. The idea was simple: mix dancehall reggae with UK drum ‘n bass. This music needs to come back. Get on it, Bens.
Here’s another jungle version of Sleng Teng.
Here’s a very electro-y remix by DJ Spooky.
Sleng Teng has even ventured into hip-hop territory. Here’s the DJ Muggs remix featuring Cypress Hill. Brilliant.
Here’s Sleng Teng mashed up with MIA’s “Paper Planes.” Both of these tunes have been remixed a billion times and Diplo, who produced “Paper Planes” has borrowed heavily from 80s dancehall, so this is a tasty mash-up.
Sleng Teng and Major Lazer. Major Lazer is sort of a pop-dancehall project spearheaded by Diplo and Switch (with tons of different guess singers/DJs).
