Rude boys in the dock

"Judge Dread" (1967), Prince Buster's celebrated courtroom record in which a stern judge sentences rude boys to enormous prison terms — a satirical, much-answered entry in the mid-1960s rude-boy record cycle.

The mid-1960s public alarm over rude-boy youth violence in Kingston, amplified in the press and pulpit, which cast unemployed ghetto youths as a criminal menace, a panic that Jamaican popular music both fed and argued with.

Jamaican vocal harmony group from Clarendon parish, originally Ernest Wilson and Peter Austin (later joined by a young Freddie McGregor), whose Studio One rude-boy-era hits include 'Rudie Bam Bam' and 'You Can't Be Happy'. A ska/rocksteady harmony group.

Singer at the centre of Jamaican music's first recorded decade: boogie and ska hits for Duke Reid, Prince Buster and Leslie Kong, the independence anthem "Forward March" (1962), a famous on-record feud with Buster, and the early rude-boy rocksteady landmark "Tougher Than Tough" (1967). He performed internationally for six decades despite losing his sight.

The mid-1960s wave of ska and rocksteady records that responded to Kingston's rude-boy phenomenon, some glamorising the sharp, defiant rudie and others counselling calm or staging courtroom judgements, producing a call-and-answer cycle across the studios.

Cecil Bustamante Campbell (24 May 1938 - 8 September 2016) came up working for Coxsone Dodd's sound — as security, handling money, sourcing records, then selecting — before building his own, Voice of the People, which within a short time was a genuine rival to both Coxsone and Duke Reid. That progression is the whole apprenticeship system in one career. In 1961 he produced the Folkes Brothers' "Oh Carolina" on his Wild Bells label, with Count Ossie's drummers on it, putting Rastafari percussion onto a commercial Jamaican record for the first time; it was licensed to Blue Beat in Britain, the label that became synonymous with 1960s ska. "Madness" (1963), "One Step Beyond" (1964) and "Al Capone" — which reached number 18 in Britain in 1967 — followed, along with the Judge Dread records and a long, partly staged feud with Derrick Morgan. He met Muhammad Ali in 1964 and joined the Nation of Islam, later issuing records on an Islam imprint. The ska revival a decade after his peak took its name and much of its manner from him: Madness named themselves for his record and made their debut single a tribute, and the Specials covered him. He died in Miami. The date of "Oh Carolina" is unsettled: 1960 and 1961 both circulate, and the reference works give 1961. Buster described how pre-independence radio payola worked against sound-system-affiliated producers: stations required "requests" to justify airplay, but with a glut of American singles to get through, and staff reportedly on record-company retainers, local producers had no realistic way to compete for airtime. In the mid-1960s the American label King Records, prompted by James Brown after he discovered Buster's music on a Jamaica trip, sought the US rights to Buster's catalogue; the deal collapsed over publishing terms, which Buster, by then an outspoken Nation of Islam figure, believed was no accident. In 1967 Philips gave his "Ten Commandments of Man" a US release that debuted at number 35 on the Cashbox chart.

"Al Capone" (1964), Prince Buster's gangster-imagery ska hit whose gun-talk swagger fed the rude-boy aesthetic and later became a touchstone for the UK 2 Tone revival.

"Simmer Down," recorded at Studio One in 1963-64, was the Wailers' debut single and a number-one Jamaican hit - the record that established Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer as a serious commercial act years before international fame, cut with the same Studio One session musicians who would later become the Skatalites. Bradley pairs it with Alton Ellis's earlier 1963 "Dance Crasher" as evidence musicians were pleading against rising street violence before rocksteady existed as a named style, pleas he suggests may have had some real effect, since the worst rude-boy disorder did not peak until 1966.

"Tougher Than Tough (Rudie in Court)" (1967), Derrick Morgan's rocksteady answer in the rude-boy courtroom saga, voicing the defiant rudie against the bench as a companion piece to Prince Buster's "Judge Dread.".

Desmond Dekker (Desmond Adolphus Dacres, 16 July 1941 - 25 May 2006) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer who was among the first to bring the music to international charts. Recording with producer Leslie Kong and his backing group the Aces, he topped the UK chart with "Israelites" (1968), the first Jamaican-produced record to reach US and UK success, and also scored with "007 (Shanty Town)" and "It Mek.".

Style of the 'rude boy' (rudie) subculture that emerged among poor young men in early-1960s Kingston alongside ska and rocksteady: sharp slim suits, narrow ties, porkpie or trilby hats and sunglasses, drawing on American jazz and soul dress; carried to Britain by the Jamaican diaspora, it influenced the mod, skinhead and later 2-Tone subcultures.

"007 (Shanty Town)," Desmond Dekker & the Aces' 1967 rocksteady hit, drew directly on "rude boy" street culture and gang imagery, helping establish the rude-boy narrative as a recurring theme in Jamaican pop reaching international audiences.