rude boy
Originally a label for a 1960s Kingston street-youth subculture: sharply dressed young men in slim suits, narrow ties, pork-pie hats and dark glasses, associated with sound-system dances, ska and rocksteady, and (in the moral panics of the day) with violence and the burgeoning urban gang scene of post-independence Jamaica.
Definitions
Originally a label for a 1960s Kingston street-youth subculture: sharply dressed young men in slim suits, narrow ties, pork-pie hats and dark glasses, associated with sound-system dances, ska and rocksteady, and (in the moral panics of the day) with violence and the burgeoning urban gang scene of post-independence Jamaica. The figure was immortalised in songs like Desmond Dekker's "007 (Shanty Town)" and the Wailers' "Rude Boy". When ska reached Britain via the Windrush generation, the rude-boy aesthetic was adopted and adapted by the UK mod, skinhead and especially the late-1970s two-tone revival (The Specials, Madness, The Beat), becoming a defining look of British working-class youth culture. Today the term is also used loosely and affectionately for any bold or fashion-forward young man.
mi grandfather still talk about the proper rude boys dem in Trench Town back in the day
Comments
Used in
Have a better definition?
Add your own interpretation of "rude boy".
🗺️About Regional & Other slang
Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.
Other words near "rude boy" (R)
Browse all slang words starting with R.
Related terms
Semantically related
- rude gyal71%
The female counterpart to "rude boy": originally a young woman moving in the same 1960s Kingston rude-boy street scene, and later a confident, bold, fashionably-dressed dancehall woman who carries herself with attitude and refuses to be pushed around. The phrase is heavily used in dancehall culture as a term of affirmation and address ("big up all the rude gyal dem"), celebrating female autonomy, sexuality and style — closely related to the "bad gyal" archetype later carried into the global pop mainstream by artists like Rihanna. Used affectionately by partners and friends and assertively by women themselves; rarely pejorative. In UK MLE the spelling "rude gyal" is dominant; some Patois writers prefer "rude girl".
- sound system62%
A mobile DJ rig consisting of large stacked speakers, amplifiers, turntables and (crucially) a crew of selectors and MCs who run it. Sound systems are the foundational cultural institution of modern Jamaican music: starting in 1950s Kingston with operators like Tom the Great Sebastian, Duke Reid and Sir Coxsone Dodd, they were the public dance halls of the Jamaican working class and the engine room of every major Jamaican genre that followed. Out of the sound-system tradition came ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub, dancehall and the toasting style that later seeded hip-hop. The model travelled with the Windrush generation to the UK, where Caribbean sound systems gave birth to lovers rock, jungle, drum and bass, UK garage and grime. "Sound system" can mean the equipment, the crew, or a sound clash event.
- roadman58%
(British, chiefly, MLE, slang) A member of a subculture characterised by their clothing (notably puffer jackets and sportswear) as street fashion and the music they listen to, notably drill music.
- youthman58%
(Caribbean) A young musician from the ghetto who agitates for social change.
- roadman58%
A young person from urban London (typically a working-class background) involved in or adjacent to street culture. Has both pejorative and self-applied uses.