Version chains

The riddim behind Alton Ellis's 1967 Studio One rocksteady side "I'm Still in Love With You", recut a decade later at Joe Gibbs's studio and turned into one of Jamaica's most productive version chains: Marcia Aitken's 1977 answer version, Trinity's toast "Three Piece Suit", and Althea & Donna's "Uptown Top Ranking", which reached number one in Britain in February 1978. A textbook case of one rhythm track carrying several hit records across a decade.

The Stalag riddim begins as "Stalag 17", an instrumental written and played by Ansell Collins and released on Winston Riley's Techniques label in 1973. It went on to become one of the most heavily versioned rhythms in Jamaican music, and the bed for the single most sampled record dancehall has produced: Sister Nancy's "Bam Bam" (1982) is voiced over Stalag, not over any rhythm of its own. Tenor Saw's "Ring the Alarm" (1985) is the other cornerstone cut. Riley was shot in Kingston and died in 2012; the rhythm he issued in 1973 is still being voiced and sampled worldwide.

Studio One instrumental cut by the Sound Dimension in 1967 and one of the most versioned rhythms ever recorded. Willie Williams's "Armagideon Time" (1979) is its most famous vocal cut; its rolling piano-and-bass figure has carried roots singers, dancehall deejays and UK jungle alike.

Studio One instrumental rhythm cut by the Sound Dimension in the late 1960s, one of the foundation riddims. Its best-known journey runs through the Mighty Diamonds' "Pass the Kouchie" (1981) to Musical Youth's "Pass the Dutchie", a UK number one in 1982 — one Brentford Road session financing decades of versions.

Studio One rhythm built on Jackie Mittoo's brooding instrumental of that name — one of the most revisited beds in the foundation catalogue, its bassline resurfacing under roots, dancehall and jungle cuts for five decades.

Foundation rhythm created at Studio One under Coxsone Dodd in 1973, also known as Jah Shakey or Rockers Hop, the original tune being Roland Alphonso's "Jah Shakey" — the minor-key colour that gave the "Far East" sound its name.

The rhythm of the Abyssinians' "Satta Massagana" (recorded 1969, released 1971 on their own Clinch label after Studio One shelved it) — the Amharic-titled devotional that became roots reggae's national anthem. Endlessly versioned, chanted at groundations and covered across generations, it is the music's most sacred rhythm bed.

Studio One instrumental rhythm from the Sound Dimension era whose menacing bass figure became foundation stock — revived repeatedly in the dancehall age, most famously under 1980s and 1990s deejay cuts.

The 1985 riddim, built by Wayne Smith and Noel Davey on a Casiotone preset at King Jammy's and voiced by Smith as "Under Mi Sleng Teng", that ended the era of the live band as the default of Jamaican music. Cheap, fully electronic and instantly copyable, it triggered the digital turn: hundreds of versions followed within a few years, production costs collapsed, and dancehall's tempo, texture and economics were remade around it. Nothing else in the archive divides a before from an after so cleanly.

The Punanny riddim is a King Jammy-era digital dancehall rhythm with a large version catalogue, often cited as a marker of the late-1980s shift toward sparse computerized tracks that gave deejays more rhythmic space and producers faster ways to build versions.