Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (W.I.) a tumbledown, slum shed or shanty made of old tins, bits of wood, discarded packaging and similar found objects.

1936		Gleaner 3 Oct. 35: A ‘Wappen Bappen’ is a tenement room, chiefly made of old packing cases, flattened out kerosene tins, old tar paper [etc.].
1943		cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).
1983		T. White Catch a Fire 210: Every ‘wappen-bappen’ (one-room hut constructed of miscellaneous scraps) in West Kingston emptied out.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1983

T. White Catch a Fire 212: The Back-o-Wall section of the Dungle, a Rasta-dominated wappen-bappen’ village.