Trash, ready and depreciated - Super Cat song records top 1985 clothing prices

While the specific dates and origins of significant shifts in Jamaican popular music are often nebulous and even hotly debated, there is no doubting when dancehall went digital. The Sleng Teng rhythm, named after Wayne Smith's title track, landed in 1985 courtesy of King Jammy's, and changed the process of making and marketing Jamaican popular music irrevocably.

Starting off the process of recording multiple songs on the same rhythm track with a bang, there are literally scores of songs to choose from on Sleng Teng. Among the more popular ones are Pumpkin Belly by Tenor Saw, which declares itself "a song of old-time proverbs"; Johnny Osbourne's Buddy Bye with is unforgettable call and response format; John Wayne's Call the Police For Me and the mildly risqué Under Me Fat Ting by Anthony Redrose.

The rhythm even had enough stamina to form the bedrock of Bounty Killer's hit Lodge in the early 1990s.

'big tune'

There is one song on the rhythm that provides listeners with more than a sense of nostalgia and a 'big tune' to dance to at a retro party, actually providing a flashback to the top clothing prices of the times.

In Trash an' Ready,deejay Super Cat chortles about how well and expensively decked out he is, boasting, "dem no nice like we/dem no sweet like we".

And he gets into the dollars of fashion sense, deejaying:

"For everything we wear it cos' a bag a money

The hat whe me wear it cos' $120

De shut a whe me wear it cos' $250

De length a whe we wear a heavy duty ...

De Clarks whe we wear it cos' a bag a money

It make a London it no make a Italy

De Clark's whe we wear it cos' $350"

a lot has changed

Twenty-six years later those prices seem ridiculous; $120 is good for a $100 cellphone 'credit'; $250 is about the price of about two cheese patties and $350 is not enough to purchase a ticket to the movies.

Of course, a lot more than that has changed since 1985. Then, Edward Seaga was actually prime minister, into his second term after the People's National Party decided not to contest the 1983 election. Since then there have been four prime ministers - Michael Manley, P.J. Patterson, Portia Simpson Miller and Bruce Golding.

Sir Florizel Glasspole was the governor general, succeeded in 1991 by Howard Cooke. Kenneth Hall became GG in 2006 and Patrick Allen is the current head of state.

Two years after Trash An' Ready hit, the official exchange rate of the Jamaican to the United States dollar was one-fifteenth of what it is now. Writing in The Gleaner in February 2009, Seaga said that "after a battle with the International Monetary Fund, I took the bold step to peg the rate at J$5.50 equal to US$1.00 in 1987".

On Friday, National Commercial Bank's website showed the bank selling US currency at $85.90 and buying it at $83.30.

- M.C.