Rude boy

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This article is about a Jamaican subculture. For other uses, see Rude boy (disambiguation).

Rude boy, rudeboy, rudie, rudi or rudy were common terms for juvenile delinquents and criminals in 1960s Jamaica, and have since been used in other contexts.[1][2] During the late-1970s 2 Tone ska revival in England, the terms rude boy, rude girl and other variations were often used to describe fans of that genre, and this new definition continued to be used in the third wave ska subculture. In the United Kingdom in the 2000s, the terms rude boy and rude girl have become slang which mainly refer to people (largely youths) who are involved in street culture, similar to Gangsta or Badman.[3]

The first rude boys in the 1960s were associated with the poorer sections of Kingston, Jamaica, where rocksteady was the most popular form of music. They dressed in the latest fashions at dancehalls and on the streets. Many of these rude boys started wearing sharp suits, thin ties, and pork pie or Trilby hats; inspired by United States gangster movies, jazz musicians and soul music artists. In that time period, disaffected unemployed Jamaican youths sometimes found temporary employment from sound system operators to disrupt competitors' dances (leading to the term dancehall crasher). This — and other street violence — became an integral part of the rude boy lifestyle, and gave rise to a culture of political gang violence in Jamaica. As the Jamaican diaspora grew in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, rude boy music and fashion, as well as the gang mentality, became a strong influence on the skinhead subculture.[4][5]

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[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Talk Jamaican - Patois Dictionary
  2. ^ A dictionary of slang - "R" - Slang and colloquialisms of the UK. “"young male [or female], tough, style conscious and with plenty of attitude.”
  3. ^ Rudeboy. Urban Dictionary. Retrieved on 2008-06-10. “98 votes up, 24 down: A Rudeboy can be anyone from a typical street thug who snatches chains, to the top dog gangster who runs the streets.(Although as of the past 7 or 8 years the word can be used to describe kids who wear caps or hoodies and drive around in cars smoking weed)”
  4. ^ Old Skool Jim. Trojan Skinhead Reggae Box Set liner notes. London: Trojan Records. TJETD169. 
  5. ^ Marshall, George (1991). Spirit of '69 - A Skinhead Bible. Dunoon, Scotland: S.T. Publishing. ISBN 1-898927-10-3). 

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