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The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

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Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#91

Post by winternett »

zuminator wrote: post #25

This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-pollination that bears novel hybrid fruit we can all enjoy.

The problem in enjoying the "cross-pollination" is that it never rewards the founders, and often rewards others that deliberately copy the overlooked artists.

Many modern works completely lift sounds and rebrand them as founded by someone else new. That is where the problem lies in modern appropriation. It's sad that social media now encourages people to completely copycat ideas and totally steal credit for innovation...

We should support original culture and artists just as much as those who sample them.

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#92

Post by npteljes »

sequoia wrote: post #44

For people wondering "what's the sleng teng riddim?" here's some examples: Original "under mi sleng teng" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjw7m-BKmQ8 One of my favorites, "The Don" by peter metro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnZuTOH2zoc 90 minute sleng teng mix (here's a bunch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwLKc61dVWQ related: Under mi sensi (doesn't actually use sleng teng riddim but it's a riff on the sleng…

Now we're just left wondering what's a "sleng teng". Teng is maybe "thing", so we're left with what's "sleng". Searching for it I'm corrected to "slang", and if I force "sleng" then all I can find is the song itself.

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#93

Post by slim »

afro88 wrote: post #84
slim wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The actual riddim sounds completely uninteresting to my American ears ok, let me try to make it more interesting. you seem to think riddim is something from the past. you may remember the music from "run the world" by Beyonce. that riddim is called "pon de floor" riddim. it was created by diplo. (warning nsfw video). riddim is essentially coding patterns for music. since each riddim has a name it creates a DSL that…

> another interesting aspect is it's free from intellectual property. it makes for a good example of the impact of free culture on creativity. You better believe Diplo got paid by Beyonce to use Pon De Floor in a track.

of course he did :) free culture does not prevent one from profiting from non-free culture. on a similar note, there's another thread on how Monty got paid twice for mysql.

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#94

Post by elefanten »

JohnBooty wrote: post #73
zuminator wrote: post #25

This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-pollination that bears novel hybrid fruit we can all enjoy.

Agree completely, though, I also don't feel like this sort of (awesome) thing is what anybody is talking about when they discuss cultural appropriation! Cross-pollination like this is, I dare say, universally loved and recognized as vital. Generally when people speak of "cultural appropriation" it's a situation where you have a majority and/or oppressing group capitalizing on the culture of a minority and/or oppresse…

Maybe that nuance was originally intended, but look around and you will find plenty of claims that wearing dreadlocks, rapping or making sushi at home are examples of cultural appropriation, if done by the wrong person.

Actually, that’s a good gut check to test whether emancipatory movements have lost their plot: how often do their prescriptions hinge on identity.

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#95

Post by dave_sid »

voldacar wrote: post #62

This is super cool. I instantly recognize the riff and vocals from countless 90s jungle & hardcore tracks even though I'm not a reggae fan. Still have no idea what a sleng teng is though.

I’m sure the prodigy sampled it

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#96

Post by jongala »

Engadget did a story around this a while back, apparently. It has less from Okuda, but some different details and other links and examples:

https://www.engadget.com/2015-12-04-casio-and-the-sleng-teng...

This is a very interesting story, and it's great to see Okuda acknowledged for her work and hear more details about that. Casio is a great example of a company that I just took completely for granted growing up and seemed completely opaque and impersonal to me. It's so cool to see the individuals that are behind all of those things. My brothers and I had an MT-40 when we were kids, I loved playing with it, and had no idea it had an impact like this.

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#97

Post by renlo »

JohnBooty wrote: post #73
zuminator wrote: post #25

This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-pollination that bears novel hybrid fruit we can all enjoy.

Agree completely, though, I also don't feel like this sort of (awesome) thing is what anybody is talking about when they discuss cultural appropriation! Cross-pollination like this is, I dare say, universally loved and recognized as vital. Generally when people speak of "cultural appropriation" it's a situation where you have a majority and/or oppressing group capitalizing on the culture of a minority and/or oppresse…

it's not stealing

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#98

Post by winternett »

selimthegrim wrote: post #61
winternett wrote: post #47

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…

What resistance was against it?

Racism and segregation for starters, there were also huge immigration hurdles for many artists from the Caribbean islands, many artists had health care related problems on the islands, tropical storms, economic depressions, governmental corruption, music equipment and resources were very expensive (because they had to be imported), and financing and funding for everything is a challenge citing that no other major music or film industry was located anywhere near to the islands (NY, California, England, etc.).

This is why many labels in the past would simply get their existing artists to "hijack" reggae themes into their music, because the islands were isolated geographically from public awareness in the early days.

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#99

Post by ericb »

JohnBooty wrote: post #73
zuminator wrote: post #25

This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-pollination that bears novel hybrid fruit we can all enjoy.

Agree completely, though, I also don't feel like this sort of (awesome) thing is what anybody is talking about when they discuss cultural appropriation! Cross-pollination like this is, I dare say, universally loved and recognized as vital. Generally when people speak of "cultural appropriation" it's a situation where you have a majority and/or oppressing group capitalizing on the culture of a minority and/or oppresse…

> and a prison guard stealing their music

That's a pretty tortured metaphor.

Would it be morally ok for the prisoners to steal the guard's music?

What if cultural borrowing is the societal precursor to acceptance and integration?

Re: The Casio employee behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

#100

Post by sithadmin »

zuminator wrote: post #25

This is a beautiful example of why people shouldn't be too quick to tag cultural borrowings as "appropriation." They often result in a back-and-forth cross-pollination that bears novel hybrid fruit we can all enjoy.

I don't buy that using a default demo sample from an electronic keyboard could ever count as cultural appropriation. Even in the most extreme case, the 'rock' sample in question that Casio offered up would ostensibly trace its roots to afro-caribbean origins anyway.
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