There was a curious culture clash in the '60s when Muhammad Ali was in Australia doing a meet'n'greet and a local TV personality was doing a light-hearted interview with him, and threw in the phrase 'I like the boy', referring to Ali.
The phrase was a slogan for a product that the local celebrity had been involved with, and didn't have the connotations here that it did in Ali's home country... the interview went sour fast.
"I like the boy" really just refers to a young male the way its said here, in Australia anyway. However, having watched enough American films, people are exposed to the "something something, boy." usage and aware of its connotations. These days you might say "guy" instead of "boy" but for no particular reason except that languages change.
In older English films, you often hear "my boy", which also doesn't have the same connotations.
Across cultural boundaries, the same words can mean different things.
Nonetheless, I'd be offended if someone referred to me as "boy" when directly addressing me because of the connotations that come from a culture separate to my own.
(For non-Americans: a common racial slur in the southern US during the Jim Crow era was to call an adult black man "boy".)