RUDE BOYS
Rudeboyism was a ghetto phenomena centered in and around the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica, prevalent in the early 1960s it found expression in dissent, violence and rebellion. Self proclaimed Rude boys or Rudies were in the most part young disaffected and impoverished young men, who, like many young men in Western cultures at the time, liked to dress sharp in the latest styles, drive fast cars and live a playboy life style. Along with these common desires they were attracted to characters in the American gangster films of the 1930s and 40s and the myths that those films attempt to portray. Added to their social and financial frustrations there was also a political* element, not least the feeling of impotence in the face of the police brutality and government oppression they would witness on a day to day bases, this and not being able to achieve their desires is why many Rude boys turned to crime and violence.
Some of the records featured below have Rude Boy (s) in the title or mentioned in the song others, are explicitly about Rude Boys though not mentioned by name.
In the UK the legend of the Rude Boys caught the imagination of the indigenous youth especially the Skinheads, and just about the time the terms Rude Boy and Rudies stopped being used in Jamaican songs they started to crop up, not only in British cut Reggae songs, but also in group names and even a label! See below.
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| BLOOD PRESSURE * SOUL BOYS * ISLAND 3052 * UK |
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| ALL RUDIES IN JAIL * ZOOT SIMS * STUDIO 1 2003 * UK |
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| WE ARE STILL RUDE * DANDY * GIANT 7 * UK |
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| TROUBLE IN THE TOWN * BOBBY THOMPSON * JOLLY 001 * UK |
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| RUDE WITH ME * DANDY * COLUMBIA 112 * UK |
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| GOING HOME * THE RUDE BOYS * ISLAND 3088 * UK |
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| WOMAN WHINE & GRINE * TERRY N FRASER * RUDE - BOY 002 * UK |
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| RUDY'S DEAD * LITTLE GRANTS & EDDIE * PRESIDENT 159 * UK |
Following on from the musical demise of the wholly West Indian Rude Boy phenomena the almost exclusively British Skinhead youth movement picked up the musical baton under which there were a spate of British recorded Reggae songs, which themselves became an international product (see below)
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| SKINHEAD SHUFFLE * THE MOHAWKS * PAMA 798 * UK |
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| SKINHEADS A BASH THEM * CLAUDETTE * GRAPE 3020 * UK |
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| EVERYBODY SUFFERIN' * LAUREL AITKEN * NU-BEAT 044 * UK |
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| SKINHEAD TRAIN * LAUREL AITKEN * PAMA 048 * S |
From 1963 and the release of Rough And Tough by Stranger Cole, which is often cited as the first record that implicitly references the Rude Boys, to the end of the decade the original Rude Boys style and behavior had influenced not only the music and culture on the West Indies but across the globe. With the coming of the new international Reggae music the Rude Boy paradigm, in Jamaican song at least, had run its course and records like the Joe Gibbs produced Rudies Medley, released in 1970, were little more than a nostalgic return to some of the incisive social comments of their day.
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| RUDIES MEDLEY * 3RD AND 4TH GENERATION * PUNCH 91 * UK |
I shall be adding to this page, as I do to the rest of the site when I can find the time.
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*** FEATURE PAGE 1 *** FEATURE PAGE 2 *** PAGE 3 *** PAGE 4 *** PAGE 5 *** PAGE 6 ***
*** PAGE 7 *** PAGE 8 *** PHYLLIS DILLON *** TIMI YURO *** COXSONE DODD ***
*** JUSTIN HINDS *** RAY CHARLES *** JOHN PEEL *** HURRICANE KATRINA ***
*** ALTON ELLIS *** SOLOMON BURKE *** WILSON PICKETT ***
* In the political context of the state being the real criminal the Rudies actions could be seen as heroic; The Russian philosopher, theorist and revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin wrote that "the violent criminal, the only true revolutionary". Unfortunately today's middle class revolutionary's who commit tame and pointless acts of mob violence when in the safety of numbers, often not against the state but against the very institutions that have provided them with the life style they enjoy. These well organised and ideological acts of violence of the middle class 'anarchist' are far removed from the daily often mundane and necessary criminal acts of the Rude boys or any real criminal, and cannot be seen, as much as it might flatter the ego, in the same light.