From Sleng Teng to the laptop

Reggae production company and label founded in 2004 by producer Winta James, whose 2013 Rootsman riddim and productions for Chronixx, Protoje and Jesse Royal became a backbone of the reggae revival.

Dave Kelly is a Jamaican producer and engineer, widely regarded as one of the architects of 1990s dancehall, who honed his craft at Donovan Germain's Penthouse before launching his own Madhouse Records with partner Janet Davidson in 1991. He built many of the era's defining rhythm tracks, including the Pepper Seed, Bogle, Joyride and Showtime riddims, which carried hits for Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Terror Fabulous, Spragga Benz and others. His records topped both local and international reggae charts throughout the decade.

Donovan Bennett, born 24 September 1978, worked as Don Corleon from a Kingston studio that made the polished one-drop the international sound of 2000s reggae. His riddims arrived as named, self-contained releases — Drop Leaf, Seasons, Istanbul, High Altitude — each carrying a dozen or more voices, and the archive's other records point back at him more often than at almost any producer of his generation. High Altitude travelled furthest: Rihanna's "Break It Off", cut with Sean Paul, put the rhythm on international pop radio in 2006. The method was Duke Reid's and Coxsone's, unchanged in principle after forty years — build the track first, sell it to the singers second — but the surface was clean, digital and mixed for headphones rather than for a lawn.

Producer (Phillip 'Winta' James), Damian Marley's keyboardist, who founded Overstand Entertainment and whose Rootsman riddim (2013) helped define the reggae revival, producing Chronixx's 'Here Comes Trouble', Protoje's 'Who Knows' and Jesse Royal's 'Modern Day Judas'.

Rvssian (Tarik Johnston), a Jamaican producer and founder of Head Concussion Records (2007) who rose to prominence producing Vybz Kartel's 'Life Sweet' (2010) and became a key architect of trap-inflected dancehall and cross-genre collaborations.

Producer (Troy Hinds) working since the 1990s whose Buzz riddim (2001) carried Sean Paul's 'Gimme the Light', Elephant Man's 'Haters Wanna War' and Sizzla's 'Pump Har Up'; his Troyton Music continued releasing juggling riddims through the 2010s.

Recording studio and production base associated with the McGregor family, where Stephen 'Di Genius' McGregor built the digital dancehall riddims that defined the late 2000s.

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.

Lloyd James, the engineer and producer who came up under King Tubby in Waterhouse and then changed the music twice over. He built and ran his own sound before turning to production, and in 1985 issued "Under Mi Sleng Teng" — the Casio-preset rhythm that ended the live-band era and opened the digital one. Through the late 1980s his Waterhouse studio was the busiest room in Jamaica, cutting for Half Pint, Admiral Bailey, Chaka Demus, Ninjaman and most of the era's voices, and his Super Power sound carried the same material into the dance.

Producer and artist (Stephen 'Di Genius' McGregor), son of Freddie McGregor, whose Big Ship studio riddims defined late-2000s digital dancehall; his teenage 'Red Bull & Guinness' riddim broke Mavado, and he has since written and produced for Sean Paul and international pop acts.

Jeremy Harding is a Jamaican producer who, with his brother Zachary, founded 2 Hard Recordings in the 1990s and became an important figure in dancehall's global crossover. He produced the influential 1997 Playground riddim, home to Beenie Man's "Who Am I," Mr Vegas's "Nike Air" and Sean Paul's early single "Infiltrate," and is closely associated with launching Sean Paul's career as producer and manager. His work helped set the template for late-1990s and early-2000s dancehall.

The production company of Wycliffe "Steely" Johnson and Cleveland "Clevie" Browne, the rhythm section that defined digital dancehall from the late 1980s — house players at Jammy's, then label owners building riddims by the hundred, "Poco Man Jam" and "Street Sweeper" among them. Steely died in 2009; Clevie has continued the firm.