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Ivanhoe "Rhyging" Martin was a Jamaican outlaw who died at age 24 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 Rudeboy.
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 Jamaican public 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 two gun gangster. Rhyging could never be caught, and because of this he was seen as sort of a hero to the people suffering in the ghetto of 1940's Jamaica. Jimmy Cliff refers to him as a kind of Jamaican Robin Hood, who was "very much on the side of the people".
Rhyging continues to play a role in Jamaican culture as a duppy or bogeyman used to scare children.
Cultural references
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.
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