17 Oct
2026
When people think of Jamaican music, they usually think of reggae, maybe ska or dancehall. But long before any of those sounds existed, Jamaica had mento. This rural folk music, played on acoustic instruments and full of humor and everyday stories, is the foundation that much of the island's later music was built on.
Mento is relaxed, rhythmic and acoustic. It is meant for dancing, singing along and storytelling rather than for big stages or loud speakers. It blends African rhythms brought to Jamaica by enslaved people with European musical forms, including dances such as the quadrille that were popular on the island during the colonial era.
The songs often tell stories about daily life: farming, food, love, local characters, money troubles and small scandals. Many are funny, some are cheeky and a few carry sharp social commentary hidden inside a light melody.
One of the best ways to recognize mento is by its instruments. A classic mento band might include:
These instruments were affordable and portable, which is part of why mento spread through rural communities. A band could play at a village gathering, a market or a family celebration without electricity. Musicians often made or repaired their own instruments, and skills were passed down from older players to younger ones by ear rather than through written music.
Mento is often confused with calypso from Trinidad and Tobago. The two styles share a lot: both are Caribbean, both tell stories with wit, and both were popular in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1950s, many mento recordings were even labeled and marketed as calypso, because calypso was better known internationally.
But they are different traditions with different roots and rhythms. Some of the Caribbean folk songs that became world famous in the 1950s, such as "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)," a work song of Jamaican dock laborers popularized by Harry Belafonte, came out of Jamaica's folk tradition, even though audiences abroad often heard them simply as calypso.
Mento became one of the first kinds of music recorded commercially in Jamaica, with records made in the 1950s. Mento bands also played for tourists at hotels along the north coast, becoming part of the island's image abroad.
Some groups kept the tradition alive for generations. The Jolly Boys, a mento band from Port Antonio, performed for decades and introduced the sound to new audiences around the world later in their career.
As Jamaican musicians began to absorb American rhythm and blues in the late 1950s, mento's offbeat feel and storytelling style helped shape the new music they created. That new music was ska, which led to rocksteady and then reggae. In that sense, mento is the grandparent of Jamaica's most famous sounds. Listen closely to early ska and you can still hear echoes of that country storytelling and that easy, swinging rhythm.
Folk music is the sound of ordinary people celebrating ordinary life, and it often stays with you long after you leave the place where you first heard it. For Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Jamaica was home for his earliest years. He was raised by his grandparents in Westmoreland, a rural parish on the island's west end, until he was six.
In his memoir Neglected But Undefeated, he writes, "I loved being in Jamaica because of the food, and the long nights of music, dancing, and freedom." He describes walking the streets and climbing hills in nature, and the love of his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Those memories gave him a picture of joy he held on to through very difficult years after he moved to Miami.
Today, Jonathan makes inspirational hip hop and soul. His music is not mento, but it carries the same Jamaican spirit of telling real stories about real life, including his signature song "One Life" with reggae artist Ambelique.
If you want to understand Jamaican music, go back to the beginning. Look for mento recordings and listen for the banjo, the rhumba box and the storytelling. Ask the elders in your family what music they grew up with in the country. You may discover songs and memories that never made it onto any record. Write them down or record them on your phone, because folk traditions survive when families take the time to keep them.
Then follow the line forward to today's artists. Hear Jonathan's music on the Music page, and read the full story of his Jamaican childhood on the Books page.
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