Mento

Mento is a Jamaican folk music that developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and stands as the island's first commercially recorded popular style, predating ska and reggae. Played by small acoustic bands built around banjo, guitar, hand drums, maracas and the rumba box — a large thumb piano that supplies the bass — it sets topical, humorous and frequently double-entendre lyrics to a lilting, offbeat dance groove. Singers such as *Lord Flea* and *Count Lasher* recorded for Kingston's first studios in the 1950s, and mento's repertory of work songs, love songs and social satire formed the foundation on which later Jamaican styles were built.