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Sleng Teng

"Under Mi Sleng Teng"
Wayne Smith Under Me Sleng Teng.jpg
Single by Wayne Smith
from the album Sleng Teng
Released 1985
Format 12"
Genre Reggae, Dancehall
Length 4:06
Label Jammy's/Greensleeves
Producer(s) Prince Jammy
Wayne Smith singles chronology
"Borrow Borrow"
(1984)
"Under Mi Sleng Teng"
(1985)
"Come Along"
(1985)

Sleng Teng is the name given to one of the first fully computerized riddims, influential in Jamaican music. The riddim, which was created by the collaboration between King Jammy and Wayne Smith, was titled "Under Mi Sleng Teng" in 1984. Wayne Smith found the computerized sound in Noel Davey's keyboard, and together he and Davey arranged the riddim, slowed it down, matched it to Smith's key, and rehearsed on it with lyrics inspired by Barrington Levy's "Under Mi Sensi" and Yellowman's "Under me fat ting", before taking it to Jammy's studio in late 1984. The riddim itself is apparently an attempt to recreate Eddie Cochran's 1959 rockabilly song "Somethin' Else." It is a pattern found in the Casio MT-40 home keyboard. However, the pattern's creator, Casio's Product Development and Music Engineer Hiroko Okuda has denied this as the source, saying instead that it was based on a 1970s British rock song she declined to identify, but has been suspected to be the David Bowie song "Hang On to Yourself".

After the riddim was brought to the studio and Jammy heard it, he then slowed it further and placed piano and a clap on it. Jammy recorded a number of other artists on the original backing track including Tenor Saw (with "Pumpkin Belly"), and Johnny Osbourne (with "Buddy Bye"). The tunes were first unleashed at a now legendary soundclash between Jammy's own sound system and Black Scorpio at Waltham Park Road on February 23, 1985.

Some of Jammy's productions based on the rhythm were released on the albums Sleng Teng Extravaganza and Sleng Teng Extravaganza 95.

Scholars Peter Manuel and Wayne Marshall argue that Sleng Teng "was seminal in various ways ... [it] further consolidated the trend toward the new production of riddims based on short ostinatos, rather than reliance on vintage B-side tracks, with their occasionally problematic chord progressions". Secondly, its sounded thoroughly novel and different from the "overused Studio One classics". Third, its success promoted the wide use of digital production methods, where "a keyboard synthesizer, sequencer, and drum machine, or access to these, could generate a new riddim, without having to spend money on studio time or studio musicians".


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