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Revision as of 13:06, 2 April 2009 by Thinktankdrinkdank (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Famed Jamaican outlaw Ivanhoe 'Rhyging' Martin, was a 24 year old man who died of gunshot wounds sustained during a shootout with police officers on September 9, 1948, in Lime Cay, Jamaica. Rhyging is appropriately regarded as the initial rude boy.
Often alluded to historically as the "Jamaican Dillinger", the seemingly invincible gunman managed to escape from prison, elude a massive dragnet, and live a life of crime for years with the help of the people before his last stand at Lime Cay.
The name Rhyging is a Jamaican patois(patwa)word meaning something like wild, hot, or bad. Ivan was nicknamed this by the locals during his rise to fame as an uncatchable gangster. When Rhyging could never be caught, he was seen as sort of a hero to the sufferers living in the ghetto of 1940's Jamaica. An avenging angel of hope to the people brutalized by the police and ignored by their government. Jimmy Cliff refers to him as a kind of Jamaican Robin Hood, who was "very much on the side of the people".
Though the name inherited by the infamous criminal/anti-hero is spelled Rhyging (as seen in print torn from the headlines of the Jamaica Gleaner) The legendary name Rhyging is often pronounced in Jamaican dialect or patois as Rhygin' (pronounced as though the letter 'g' at the end were silent). The name is acceptably pronounced as though you were saying the word rhyming only with a hard 'Guh' sound in place of the letter m.
He was the inspiration for the 1972 film The Harder They Come starring Jimmy Cliff as Ivan Martin and directed by Perry Henzell. He is also mentioned by the band The Clash in the song "The Guns of Brixton" off the 1979 album release London Calling.
The story of Rhyging as it appears in Jamaican folklore is something of a fairy tale as described by retired policeman Eustace Wade (allegedly credited as the leader of the raiding party on the Cay.)
Folklore tells of Rhyging as a duppy, a sort of a bogeyman type who will come to get you in the night.