STORY · GLOBAL
From Sleng Teng to the laptop
Well supported
The digital riddim turned the producer into the star of the record - and the story runs from a Casio preset to the modern hit factory.
How the 1985 digital turn made the riddim-builder the author of the hit, from King Jammy through Dave Kelly to Di Genius, Rvssian and Winta James.
A preset changes the credit
In 1985 King Jammy built Sleng Teng from a Casio rock preset, and the digital era began. From then on, a hit was often sold on the strength of its riddim - and the riddim belonged to the producer. Steely & Clevie turned that into an industrial method, cutting dozens of voicings on a single rhythm.
The 1990s made producers into brands. Dave Kelly's Madhouse riddims and Jeremy Harding's 2 Hard sound broke artists as much as the artists broke the riddims, and the juggling album became the unit of dancehall.
The producer as headliner
A new generation inherited the model and the laptop. Di Genius built the late-2000s digital sound at Big Ship; Rvssian scaled Head Concussion into a Latin-pop crossover; Troyton sold Sean Paul to the world on the Buzz riddim; and Don Corleon refined the modern one-drop.
You could hum the producer's riddim before you learned the singer's name.
The revival turned the tools back toward roots. At Overstand, Winta James built the Rootsman riddim that carried a new conscious wave - proof that the producer-as-author idea now spans every corner of the music.