Sleng Teng: How a Japanese woman influenced Jamaica's reggae

Interesting.Hope Casio finally helps her fulfill her wishes.

I never knew any of this so I'll have to ask some family and friends that are heavily into reggae to see if they've ever heard of her. Regardless, she deserves a lot more credit, prestige, etc than she's gotten so far and I hope she receives it soon.

I think I had one of those back in the day.

She deserves a special Grammy.

I remember when I was 15 and these models would be in the stores, customers would toy with them a lot. At the time I thought they were just that - TOYS for hobbyists. They ain't Minimoogs, Roland Super Jupiters or Kurzweils. Of course I was wrong.

Still, who would've thought somebody with one of those things would come up with an innovative idea like this? You never know.

MocheakeFeb. 27  09:23 am JST

I never knew any of this so I'll have to ask some family and friends that are heavily into reggae to see if they've ever heard of her. Regardless, she deserves a lot more credit, prestige, etc than she's gotten so far and I hope she receives it soon.

I just looked up 'Sleng Teng' under Wikipedia and she is listed as having composed the MT-40 "rock" preset in 1980. This model came out in the early 80s, I remember that. Okuda Hiroko has her own Wikipedia article page too. She went on to invent other musical innovations, but she is credited with the credit that is due to her.

What a nice story to read. She just quietly did her job and changed the world.

So many great foundation tunes on the Sleng Teng riddim and all thanks to this Casio. Great to see this lady getting her dues. Big up!

In addition to dancehall reggae, the entire bedrock of hip hop was also built on Japanese technology. Without names like vestax, technics, akai, Roland etc. there would be no hip hop. Hope to hear those stories some day

The Japanese electronics industry had a lot to do with the way music was produced world wide. I can recall Roland came out with a series of keyboards and modules the U-220, D-50, Yamaha had the DX7 and there were more then came Roger Linn who helped form the Akai MPC with the MPC-60 then the MPC3000 and from then on sampling was king!! The Japanese companies had the keyboard market all to themselves until computers and software came along and then everyone had a home studio and calling themselves producers. That is why music is crappy today, no one plays just copy cut and paste and hit one note and sound drunk saying a bunch of words no one understands!! Great job Hiroko Okuda and other Japanese keyboard designers!!!