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  This
site was created to give Jamaica's mento music a presence on the web.
Mento is a vibrant and significant genre of music. It has a very
long
history and is still performed today. Mento was crucial in the
formation of ska and reggae, yet,
for the world-wide masses of ska and reggae fans, mento is largely unheard and
unknown.
I love this music and want it to be remembered, documented and celebrated.
As someone who had enjoyed ska, rock steady, and reggae for more than 20 years,
discovering mento was a fantastic treat for the ears as well as a
revelation. This foundation chapter in the history of Jamaican
music was finally revealed.
 I
hope other mento fans will find this site. They may get a laugh from the
What Mento Isn't page. I invite
them to contribute
information, scans and
clips, as many have already. You will be credited by name for your
contribution, unless you ask otherwise. Frequent visitors to this site
may want to bookmark
the News and What's New page. In addition to any mento
news items that come my way, this page has as a listing of updates made to this site.
 I also hope
that this site will create new mento fans. If you like ska
and reggae, but you
haven't heard mento, then half the story has never been told. I
hope the What Is Mento? and
Can I Buy Mento? (which includes some recommendations) pages are especially helpful to you. Also, check
out the
artists' pages, as well as the More
Scans and the
More Artists and Favorite Songs Clips
pages. These include hundreds of rare label and jacket scans (almost all of
which can be clicked on for a larger rendition) with contributions from mento collectors around the world,
as well as more than a hundred
audio clips of mento recordings long unavailable. Lyrics to some songs are
also included on these pages.
 Take a look at the Cover
Version of Mento Songs, the Bob Marley & The Wailers
and the Toots & The Maytals
pages. You may find that some of the reggae songs you've been
enjoying for years are actually mento songs.
Check out other pages, for mento screen backgrounds and the worlds
only mento t-shirts. There is a page for mento
lyrics and one for video of
mento performances. There is even a page for Mento
Souvenirs. The
Jamaican Music Roadmap graphically puts mento into the perspective of
Jamaican music history. There is also a page with photos of a few of the
many
Mento
Bands That Are Playing At Jamaican Hotels Today.
Most recently, pages have been
added for covering a very old, one-of-a-kind mento album
and "foreign mento" from countries other than Jamaica.
     Finally, there
are pages on topics related to mento: the overlap between mento and
Jamaican folk music is explored on the Edric
Connor, Louise Bennett and Jamaican Folk page. A page on
Harry Belafonte describes how this artist
used Jamaican folk/mento as a
major influence and helped popularize these songs.
The Mento and Jazz page
describes how the earliest mento recordings were on jazz records of the
1920s and 1930s and how mento-jazz has spanned the decades.
Please let me
know of
any error in this site, from a typo to a major gaffe. Also, if you have
information, photos or recordings to contribute to this site, please contact
me. I will be sure to credit you by name for your addition to this site.
Highly desirable, difficult
to obtain and sometimes expensive, getting
mento recordings is like digging for diamonds. My final hope for this site
is that mento fans can meet and do some
trading rather than just making each other
poorer on eBay.
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