Rudeboy

Rudeboy, rudie, rudi or rudy is a common term for juvenile delinquents and criminals in the 1960s in Jamaica.

Rude boys were associated with the poorer sections of Kingston, where ska and rocksteady were the popular form of music. They dressed in the latest fashions at dancehalls and on the streets. Many of these rudies 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 the 1960s, 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 rudeboy lifestyle, and gave rise to the political gang violence seen in Jamaica today.

As the Jamaican diaspora grew in the United Kingdom in during the 1960s, Jamaican youth or "rude boy" music and fashion became a strong influence on the skinhead subculture. During the 1970s 2 Tone ska revival in England, the terms rude boy and rude girl were often used to describe fans of that genre, and this revised use of the term continued with the third wave ska movement. In these two contexts, the term rude boy was long separated from the term's tough, gangster past. In the United Kingdom in the 2000s, the terms rude boy and rude girl have come to refer mainly to Afro-Caribbean youths who follow the latest trends and fashions in African American or Afro-Caribbean culture, such as those associated with the hip hop culture. The terms are often used in a derogatory sense to describe youths from poorer backgrounds who attempt to emulate such fashions.