Wayne Smith

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Wayne Smith was born Ian Flemmings Smith in 1965 and grew up in Waterhouse, a district of Kingston, Jamaica. He performed at sound systems and began recording in 1980, at the age of fourteen. In the beginning he worked with the producer Prince Jammy, his neighbour, who produced his debut album Youthman Skanking and, in 1985, its follow-up Smoker Super. His early style was rooted in roots reggae, but slowed down, in the spacious dancehall style of the time, with backing from, among others, the Roots Radics, with Scientist and King Tubby at the controls.

Music and breakthrough

In 1985 he recorded Under Mi Sleng Teng, the song that is seen as the start of the digital age of reggae. The rhythm part came from a preset pattern on a Casio MT-40, not from real musicians. The lyrics were inspired by Under Mi Sensi by Barrington Levy. There are several stories about who discovered the pattern, but usually Smith and Noel Davey are named. He went on to have further hits with Come Along and Ain't No Meaning in Saying Goodbye. In 1989 he moved to New York and started his own label, Sleng Teng Records. He died in 2014.

Influence

The step from real instruments to digital rhythms had major consequences, for ragga and later for jungle, rave and drum and bass. That makes this one song a turning point in the history of dance music.

Listening

• 
  Under Mi Sleng Teng · Wayne Smith, 1985
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1985Smoker Super
• 1986Sleng Teng
• 1992Sleng Teng / Computerised Dub
• 2004Youthman Skanking