World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Noel Davey

Artist. Dancehall

Active
1984-present

Noel Davey is the Waterhouse keyboard player who found the preset that became the Sleng Teng riddim, and who is credited as one of its three authors.

He grew up on the same streets as Lloyd James, later King Jammy, and around the corner known locally as Big Road, where Black Uhuru, the Wailing Souls, Junior Reid, and Half Pint were all in reach. His only keyboard was a melodica. In 1984 he asked his mentor George "Buddy" Haye, of the Wailing Souls, to bring him a Yamaha DX7 back from an American tour; a DX7 cost close to two thousand dollars and Haye sent home a Casiotone MT-40 at a hundred and fifty instead. Davey had it for a couple of months, treating it as a toy, and had begun playing it with Wayne Smith, who started coming around after Davey's musical partner Neville Brown emigrated, when the pattern Okuda Hiroko had labeled rock caught his ear.

What the two of them built on it, and what was then slowed and reworked at King Jammy's studio before Smith voiced it, was released early in 1985 as "Under Mi Sleng Teng" on Jammy's and Greensleeves. Later issues credit the song to Ian Smith, Noel Davey, and Lloyd James. In 2004 he set up a label of his own, Powerstone, and issued further cuts of the riddim. He told the story at length in a 2016 interview with the broadcaster DJ 745. The Gleaner has counted him among the three key figures of the story, and the least known of them.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Bobby Digital, engineer on the session, told Bradley: "It was Noel Davey, a singer and musician, he was the one who had the computer box and he and Wayne Smith was friends." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 522. The Rough Guide instead names "another struggling singer, Noel Bailey," citing Beth Lesser, and notes "an alternative account" crediting Tony Asher. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 295. Katz, in two accounts, names Davey as the "local youth" with the Casiotone MT-40 whom Wayne Smith met "in late 1984." David Katz, "RIP Wayne Smith, Digital Dancehall Pioneer," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, February 20, 2014, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/02/wayne-smith-rip; David Katz, "Wayne Smith's Under Mi Sleng Teng: The Song That Revolutionised Reggae," Guardian, February 20, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/20/wayne-smith-sleng-teng-revolutionised-dancehall-reggae.
  2. Davey: "Me and the Waterhouse groups had a good link - Black Uhuru, Wailing Souls, Junior Reid, Half Pint ... Them call the corner Big Road." Mel Cooke, "Noel Davey Puts Sleng Teng on Record," Jamaica Gleaner, March 1, 2015, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20150301/noel-davey-puts-sleng-teng-record.
  3. "Because I had a little melodica playing, people used to see my talent." Cooke, "Noel Davey Puts Sleng Teng on Record."
  4. "Like a Human Flood: Attempting to Uncover the Real Sleng Teng Story," The Quietus, February 23, 2025, https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/wayne-smith-sleng-teng-riddim-40/. In the Gleaner account, it was Garth Dennis of the Wailing Souls who told Davey that "Bunny send a keyboard for you." Cooke, "Noel Davey Puts Sleng Teng on Record."
  5. Davey had the MT-40 "maybe a couple months" before the rhythm "popped up," and Wayne Smith began coming around after his partner Neville Brown migrated. Cooke, "Noel Davey Puts Sleng Teng on Record." On Okuda Hiroko and the MT-40 presets: "Like a Human Flood."
  6. Davey dated the recording to "about December 1984" and said "all the keyboard work was done by me," with Jammy wanting the tempo to "go down little bit more." Cooke, "Noel Davey Puts Sleng Teng on Record." Bobby Digital described the studio crew slowing the machine's preset to "what was closest to a reggae tempo." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 522-23. The Rough Guide says the rhythm "was then slowed down and re-recorded by Asher at Jammy's studio," and dates its debut to the Jammy-Black Scorpio clash of February 23, 1985. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 295.
  7. The original 1985 labels credit the song to Smith alone. "Wayne Smith: Under Mi Sleng Teng," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/552366; "Wayne Smith / Michael Buckley: Under Me Sleng Teng / Dance Gate," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/560398. The three-way credit to Ian Smith, Lloyd James and Noel Davey appears on the 2013 Greensleeves reissue of the Sleng Teng album. "Wayne Smith: Sleng Teng," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/4820102.
  8. Discogs lists Powerstone Records as "founded by Noel Davey," with releases from 2004, including a "Sleng Teng Rhythm" single. "Powerstone Records," Discogs, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/label/229244.
  9. "DJ 745's Irie Jamms Show, The Sleng Teng Story Sept. 23, 2016," World A Reggae, accessed October 4, 2026, https://www.worldareggae.com/iriejammsshow/dj-745s-irie-jamms-show-sleng-teng-story-sept-23-2016/. "Like a Human Flood."
  10. The Gleaner noted that there "has not been much debate about the key figures" in Waterhouse, "keyboard player Noel Davey, singer Wayne Smith and producer Lloyd 'King Jammy' James," but that "Davey is the least known and acknowledged." Cooke, "Noel Davey Puts Sleng Teng on Record."

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