Wayne Smith’s landmark ragga anthem Under Me Sleng Teng in 1985 marked the move away from conscious reggae into digital dancehall music in Jamaica.

Moving forward into the mid-Eighties, this is the song that marked the turning point between conscious reggae – real instruments, Rasta-influenced lyrics – and ragga, the digital dancehall offspring of reggae with harder, harsher beats and lyrics often addressing social concerns.

Wayne Smith had already made a couple of decent old-skool reggae albums (Youthman Skanking, Smoker Super) with Prince Jammy and King Tubby when he transformed Jamaican music with this landmark tune in 1985.

The riddim, based on a simple pre-set button on a Casio keyboard – went on to become the most-copied and most-sampled in the history of Jamaican music, the basis for literally hundreds of other tunes.

It’s apparently based on the riff of Eddie Cochran’s rock’n’roll hit Somethin’ Else, while the lyric is not-so-loosely adapted from a song Under Me Sensi by Barrington Levy, the singer I featured yesterday, which is probably why this came to mind.

Without this tune we would have had no Shabba Ranks, no Chakademus and Pliers and (swings and roundabouts) no Buju Banton.