LONDON — Rudeboy style was born in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the years leading up to and immediately following the country’s independence from Britain in 1962.
Now familiar to a new generation, in part thanks to a popular Rihanna song, the original youth movement was a response to Jamaica’s rising unemployment. The subculture revolved around the emerging sounds of ska, and the local dance halls where “rudies” moonlighted as intimidation-for-hire.
“Return of the Rudeboy,” an exhibition on display through Aug. 25 at Somerset House in London, makes clear that the rudeboy still reigns in Britain. Curated by the photographer and filmmaker Dean Chalkley in collaboration with Harris Elliott, who heads the leather-specialist label H by Harris here, the show celebrates the 21st-century British rudie. At its center is a portrait series by Mr. Chalkley and Mr. Elliott, shot in London, documenting about 60 men (and a few women) who reflect the movement’s iconoclastic attitude.
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