1910 H. G. de Lisser In Jamaica & Cuba vi. 109 Known as the mento, the bamboula, the chica, you will find this dance wherever the African was taken as a slave.

1954 R. Mais Brother Man ii. 64 The tune of that mento kept going through her head... They sometimes sat on the step, when the evenings were warm, and sang mentos together.

1976 A. Boot & M. Thomas Jamaica 32/2 Jamaican calypso, what's called mento, is crude and simple, and back in the fifties the Baptists and the Church of God saw to it that the best mento, the lewd stuff, never got out of the backyard.

1980 Black Perspective in Music 8 46/1 The urbanization of Jamaican folk music from mento to ska.

1992 Times 15 Feb. (Sat. Review) 35/1 Reared on the Bible, the Caribbean mento tradition and the spontaneous lyricism of the reggae artists, this is tersely pointed contemporary folk poetry of the highest order.