Rude boy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term rude boy or Rude Girl came from Jamaican slang for cool or hip, and rude boys dressed in the latest fashions at dancehalls and on the streets. The term rude boy may have been associated with an extremely potent rum-based drink called Rude to Your Parents, which was served at sound system parties. It may also be related to the term rudeness, which was used in Jamaica in the 1950s and 1960s in reference to sexual intercourse.
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.
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