"The Real Story Is Stranger Than the Legend'

"If you've heard a version of the sleng teng story before, it probably went something like this: The rock preset on the Casio MT40 was meant to sound like Eddie Cochran's "Somethin' Else," but whoever programmed it didn't quite get it right. The wonky rhythm was later stumbled upon by reggae artists Noel Davy, King Jammy and Wayne Smith in the mid-'80s. The trio used the preset as the bassline for the 1985 single "Under mi sleng teng" (a patois ode to the perils of drugs) and the rest, as they say, is history.
"Most of this story is true, but it's mixed with folklore."

James Trew at Engadget explains how a Casio keyboard preset changed Jamaican music in the 1980s.

Peter at Axis Chemicals writes, "I don't have contact information for Hiroko Okuda, but I am positive that the track she is referring to is 'Hang Onto Yourself' by David Bowie."