As a musician that also does IT work, the part where copyright/law suit was mentioned troubled me a bit...
Artists aren't profiting massively from sampling. Even from making music in general. Actually, most artists don't get paid at all when uncleared samples are involved, and especially because of the predatory system of music publication. The ideal like they are the ones who should be sued worries me about a wrong take on the art overall. Perhaps Casio should have given her a bonus, because back then because of Sleng Teng, they sold a lot more units.
If we buy a piece of music equipment with presets on it, the license for usage should be 100% included in the purchase, or not included on the device at all.
Copyright is one of the biggest things that threatens music innovation moving forward. The Sleng Teng riddim was indeed influential to reggae for many years, but it was not a game changer because Reggae had existed long before it and even well before Casio. To say that Casio or Okuda Hiroko made the riddim and influenced reggae was a bit of a stretch... The vocals, use, performance, distribution and choice to use a Casio keyboard on the song were all by Noel Davey. To say a preset on a keyboard he used was responsible for a cultural era totally ignores what inspired Hiroko to make the preset.
To try to credit a preset as a cultural influence on reggae discredits all of the other aspects of riddim culture and tools that existed at that point too, Linn Drums, the DR550, The Effectron II, etc... So many things influenced reggae. As someone who was there during the era, Sleng Teng was a great track, but to say the preset revolutionized reggae is like saying modems influenced Internet culture.
Reggae is specifically a Caribbean music art form that has grown from the 1940s and spread across the world against great resistance, and the heritage and innovation behind it is specifically due to the artists that made each song...
Otherwise, we should probably credit Ableton and a bunch of synth plug-ins for pretty much every preset used on almost every dance track made now...
This article kind of highlights a major part of the discussion surrounding cultural appropriation, it's the ideal that something needs to be linked to "more favorable or esteemed" cultures to be more noteworthy or humanized.
Reggae is uniquely Caribbean in origins, artists faced great struggles to make the music and most did not get paid anything notable at all. Others are free to integrate the ideals however they want, but the origins, credits, authenticity, and history should not be re-written just to make a new story.
Authentic history of the Sleng Teng Riddim and Riddim Culture-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6geaZFHZC2g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It08Mt3q38k