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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Wayne Smith

Artist. Dancehall

Active
1985-2014
Sunrise
December 5, 1965, Waterhouse, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
February 17, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica

Ian "Wayne" Smith sang on "Under Mi Sleng Teng," the record that ended one era of Jamaican music and began another.

He grew up in Waterhouse, next door to Lloyd "Prince Jammy" James, started out voicing dubplates at King Tubby's, and began recording for Jammy at fourteen. Jammy produced his first single, "Life Is a Moment in Space," and his album Youthman Skanking in 1982.

In late 1984 he and a friend were playing with a Casio MT-40, a cheap home keyboard. Its rock preset, written at Casio by Okuda Hiroko and adapted from Eddie Cochran's "Somethin' Else," gave them a rhythm, and Smith, who said he sang it "out of my head," made a lyric over it about herb against cocaine, borrowing its cadence from Barrington Levy's "Under Mi Sensi." They took it to Jammy. He thought it too fast; at his studio it was slowed, matched to Smith's key and given piano and handclaps, and "Under Mi Sleng Teng" was released in early 1985. It broke at a clash between Jammy's sound and Black Scorpio on February 23, 1985.

Within months most of the industry had moved to computerized riddims, which put a generation of session musicians out of work. The Sleng Teng riddim itself has been voiced more than two hundred times, by Tenor Saw ("Pumpkin Belly"), Johnny Osbourne ("Buddy Bye") and Bounty Killer ("Lodge") among many others.

Smith started his own Sleng Teng label in 1986 and issued early records by Shabba Ranks, Ninjaman and Bounty Killer. He divided his time between Jamaica and the Bronx and continued to record in both digital and live settings. He departed at Kingston Public Hospital shortly after being admitted with stomach pains, aged forty-eight.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Bradley calls the 1985 single "dancehall's clearest line in the sand," "the first to have no bass-line." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 517. The Rough Guide credits it with "kick-starting the digital phase of reggae." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 295.
  2. Katz says Jammy, "his next-door neighbour," began recording him in 1981, when he was fourteen. 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. "Life Is a Moment in Space" and Youthman Skanking appeared on Black Joy in 1982, produced by Prince Jammy. "Wayne Smith - Life Is A Moment In Space / Aint No Me Without You," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/2069873; "Wayne Smith - Youthman Skanking," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1063521. Katz adds that Smith first sang over riddims at King Tubby's, where "a man named Pug" persuaded Scientist to let him voice a Bunny Lee riddim, and that he then cut dubplates for Pug there. 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.
  3. The books disagree on who had the keyboard. Bobby Digital, Jammy's engineer, told Bradley it was "Noel Davey, a singer and musician," with "the Casio Rhythm Box." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 522. The Rough Guide gives Beth Lesser's account (the singer Noel Bailey's Casio) and an alternative (Tony Asher and Smith's own keyboard). Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 295. Katz names Davey and the "Casiotone MT40." Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng." On the Casio employee Okuda Hiroko, who programmed the preset, Wikipedia cites nippon.com. "Wayne Smith (Musician)," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Smith_(musician).
  4. The Rough Guide calls the preset "a close relative to Eddie Cochran's rock 'n' roll hit 'Something Else.'" Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 295. Katz says Smith adapted "ideas explored in Barrington Levy's recent hit Under Mi Sensi" for a lyric favoring marijuana over cocaine. Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng." Angus Taylor, "Interview: Wayne Smith," United Reggae, March 15, 2011, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n574/031511/interview-wayne-smith.
  5. Jammy told Katz: "It was too fast ... I slowed it down to dancing mode, then we overdubbed some piano and percussion." Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng." Bobby Digital told Bradley: "we took down the speeds of what they had in the machines originally." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 522. The Rough Guide says the rhythm was "slowed down and re-recorded by Asher at Jammy's studio." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 295.
  6. The Rough Guide dates the clash and says that "its impact was immediate." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 295. Bobby Digital recalled Jammy taking the tune to his sound "either that night or in the next day or so"; Katz quotes Jammy putting it on "a few days later" at the Black Scorpio clash. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 523; Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng."
  7. The Rough Guide says many producers "jettisoned most of the non-digital rhythms they had stockpiled." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 295. Katz says that afterward most riddims were "made without the input of singers or musicians." Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng."
  8. Riddimguide lists Tenor Saw's "Pumpkin Belly" and Johnny Osbourne's "Buddy Bye" (both Jammys, 1985) and Bounty Killer's "Lodge" (1993) among the rhythm's versions. "Sleng Teng," riddim page, Riddimguide, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.riddimguide.com/tunedb/riddim_Sleng%20Teng/. Katz counts "more than 200 versions." Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng."
  9. Wikipedia dates the Sleng Teng label to after his move to New York in 1989. "Wayne Smith (Musician)." Katz says he "launched his own Sleng Teng label in 1986," after dividing his time between Jamaica and the Bronx, and "issued early work on it by Shabba Ranks, Ninjaman and Bounty Killer." Katz, "RIP Wayne Smith."
  10. Wikipedia says he was admitted to Kingston Public Hospital on February 14, 2014, "with severe stomach pains," and died on February 17, aged forty-eight. "Wayne Smith (Musician)." Katz reports a heart attack. Katz, "Under Mi Sleng Teng."

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