One Drop Four
Under Mi Sleng Teng
Our fourth posting focuses on the dancefloor experience - where the music moves the body. Stephen Watt describes his dancefloor experience in an unlikely setting - a small semi-rural town in the east of Scotland.
Also featured is an account of the success of Wayne Smith’s groundbreaking dancefloor smash ‘Under Mi Sleng Teng’ and a fantastic mix of cuts which ‘Sleng Teng’ inspired.
Oh, and I had a Casio MT-40 which my mate Steve Thomas gave me in the early 1980s…which is the very same machine that the ‘Sleng Teng’ preset bassline came from. If only I’d known - I could have cut my own legend.
Auchtermuchty Reggae
A door opens, then the smog hits you.
In the centre of the haze,
half-closed eyes and boomerang grins
varnishes every face
and Samba trainers shamble, rock
side to side on strange smelling floorboards
where the roaches and ash
will be brushed and shovelled away
before the clubbers arrive.
White man dreadlocked swamp monsters
adorning Wailers t-shirts
are fascinated with these floorboards,
dyed in green, yellow and red stage-lights.
Heads are bowed in unreservedly, wholly
lock, stock and two smoking joints
zonked-mode.
Reggae rumbles out the sound system,
shaking the merch stall beads
and weed-saturated jackets
into an uplifting chorus of ‘Here we, here we,
here we UPSTROKE CHIKA CHIKA-go’
until the bones flood with bass,
blood bubbles in the brain
and love is stained all over your face.
Stephen Watt
Click below for a dizzying megamix of dancehall cuts riding the legendary 'Sleng Teng' riddim. Part One Part Two