Did David Bowie invent reggae’s Sleng Teng riddim?
One of the most original and tirelessly innovative artists of all time, David Bowie changed the face of popular music forever. From his early success with glam rock to his experimental period and flirts with drum and bass, Bowie was constantly moving forward, looking for new sounds and styles to sink his teeth into. Hailed for his musical innovation, one aspect of Bowie’s legacy that is often forgotten is his contributions to reggae music, specifically the riddim of Sleng Teng.
Emerging from Jamaica in the 1960s, reggae music was the result of slowing down the ska and rocksteady styles that had become popular on the island. Heavily influenced by the Rastafarian movement, reggae music soon spread around the world, spawning global stars like Bob Marley and Gregory Issacs. The musical style has developed rapidly since it first burst onto the scene in Jamaica. Lovers rock, jungle, dancehall and dub were all born from reggae, and in the 1980s, a new style of reggae called Sleng Teng riddim came about.
Sleng Teng is characterised by its entirely electronic composition. The spiritual predecessor to jungle, drum, and bass, Sleng Teng brought reggae music up to date by incorporating drum machines and the influence of dance music. The fresh riddim was first unleashed on the 1985 Wayne Smith track ‘Under Me Sleng Teng’.
The track was reportedly created after Smith and Noel Davey got their hands on a Casiotone MT-40 keyboard. The classic Sleng Teng sound came out of experimentation with this fairly lacklustre synthesiser, with the pair accidentally stumbling on the ‘rock bass’ preset and then spending the following week trying to recreate that sound.
Casiotone’s ‘rock bass’ preset is where David Bowie enters the story of Sleng Teng. The rock presets for Casio were created by Japanese music engineer Okuda Hiroko. Many have theorised that the basis for those presets would have been Eddie Cochran’s ‘Somethin’ Else’ or even ‘Anarchy in the UK’ by Sex Pistols. Although Cochran seemed to be the prime candidate for years, Hiroko later revealed that the preset was inspired by an unnamed British rock record from the 1970s. As such, many have attributed the preset sound to Bowie and his classic track ‘Hang On to Yourself’.
Revisiting the Bowie track, it is easy to see why it has been credited with inspiring the rock preset that spawned Sleng Teng. The fuzzy, bass-heavy track from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars is one of the finest products from Bowie’s glam period. Hiroko has never confirmed the exact origin of her rock preset sound, but the influence of the glam rock star can certainly be heard in the preset, and indeed in Sleng Teng.
While crediting a white British man with the creation of a Jamaican reggae riddim may be problematic, it seems as though Sleng Teng was a truly international product. Jamaican musicians using a Japanese keyboard, bought in the USA, with sounds inspired by British rock – the origins of Sleng Teng are undeniably multinational.
