ENTITY · INSTRUMENT
Casio MT-40
Well supported
A small consumer keyboard sold from the early 1980s, and the most consequential piece of equipment in dancehall's history. One of its preset accompaniment patterns — slowed down and reworked by Noel Davey — became the rhythm of Wayne Smith's "Under Mi Sleng Teng", produced by King Jammy in 1985. A machine intended for living rooms replaced the session band, and the music has been made on keyboards ever since.
At a glance
- Type
- instrument →
- Confidence
- Well supported
Coverage areas
Tap a tag to explore related records across the atlas.
Connections
Debate & reception
How people argued about the music — praise, criticism and public debate. See all debate & reception →
debate
Sleng Teng: digital revival or the ruin of live reggae
Wayne Smith's 1985 'Under Mi Sleng Teng', built by King Jammy and Noel Davey around a Casio MT-40 preset, is widely credited as the first fully digital dancehall riddim. Purists and some session players held that the drum-machine sound cheapened reggae and displaced the live rhythm bands (the Roots Radics and Sly & Robbie's circle) who had defined the music, while champions argued it democratized production — a youth with a keyboard could now cut a hit without costly studio time — and that it launched the most-versioned riddim in Jamaican history. Later writing frames the moment as either a revival that birthed modern dancehall or the ruin of organic reggae craft.
Stance: democratizing computer riddim vs. the death of the session-band sound