youmustfaceyourmortality:

karnythia:

ihavethisblog:

merrydeth16:

Rhianna ruined the term rude boy. no offense to Rhianna, i think she’s actually pretty good, but the whole rude boy thing kinda bugs me. Rude boy is a term for fans of ska. now i cant google rude boy without…

Ska is not a “white, watered down version of reggae” or “a mix of punk and reggae.”

Ska came before Reggae, it was a Jamaican creation, influenced by New Orleans Jazz and US R&B as well as mento (an earlier Jamaican musical form) and marching band music. That poster may be thinking of the *second* wave of Ska in the 1980s, which did revitalize the careers of some of the first wavers but also went in a more poppy direction and crossed over to white middle class audiences.

However the first wave of Ska was in the 1950s in Jamaica and crossed over to England with the waves of Jamaican migration after World War Two, and was important to the Jamaican migrant communities in England.  A multiracial audience for ska developed in England (especially among working class youth white and black), but that doesn’t mean it was a “white, watered down” version of anything. The term Rude Boy dates back to the pre-UK times (although it was popularized by Jamaican singers like Laurel Aitken in the UK as well) and does mean ‘gangster’ or tough guy.