Dancehall

Dancehall sits at 90-110 BPM, usually built around a single digital riddim — a backing track that multiple artists will record vocals over. The Sleng Teng riddim (1985) was the first all-digital one and triggered the genre's defining shift. Vocal delivery is the deejay style: chanted, rapped, and sung lines, often in Jamaican Patois, with rapid syllable cascades and frequent use of the bassline as a melodic anchor. Arrangements are sparse — synth bass, drum machine, a stab or two — and mixes leave a lot of space for the vocal. Lyrics range from slackness (explicit sexual material) to cultural / Rasta-aligned messages, with subgenres for each.

Dancehall grew out of late-1970s Jamaica when sound system selectors and deejays (the term for MCs in Jamaica) began toasting over instrumental versions of reggae singles at outdoor parties. The 1985 release of Wayne Smith's "Under Mi Sleng Teng," produced by King Jammy on a Casio MT-40 preset, marked the move from live bands to all-digital production and remade the local industry overnight. Through the 1990s, deejays like Shabba Ranks, Buju Banton, Beenie Man, and Bounty Killer built international careers. The 2000s saw dancehall feed directly into reggaeton (via the dembow), grime, and US hip-hop production; Sean Paul, Vybz Kartel, and Popcaan are touchpoints from the streaming era.

Pay attention to the riddim — once you know what it is, you can hear the same backing track on a dozen different singles by different artists. The bassline often plays a two-note pattern that doubles as the song's hook. Deejay flows shift between half-time chanting and double-time rapid-fire syllables; listen for that gear change. Production is dry by pop standards — there's a lot of empty space around each element.

Wayne Smith's "Under Mi Sleng Teng" (1985) is the digital pivot point. For a more recent overview, Vybz Kartel's Kingston Story (2011), produced by Dre Skull, is one of the cleanest album-length statements of modern dancehall.

The Sleng Teng riddim was based on a preset rhythm pattern in the Casio MT-40 home keyboard, a fact that producer King Jammy didn't hide — the keyboard was retailing for around US$100, and the joke at the time was that anyone could now make a hit.