Yes, rap beef battles started in the ‘hood, says a professor at the University of New Mexico, but it sure wasn’t on the streets of New York City, Philadelphia or south-central L.A. In fact, says the expert on American and Scottish culture, it wasn’t even in the United States. Professor Ferenc Szasz contends that free-style wars, where two or more rappers trade syncopated insults, actually come from the ancient Caledonian art of “flyting.” He says that Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where slaves got hold of it and made it their own. It later came back in the form of rap, he says. “Professor Szasz is convinced there is a clear link between this tradition for settling scores in Scotland and rap battles, which were famously portrayed in Eminem’s 2002 movie 8 Mile,” The Telegraph reports. Said Szasz: “The Scots have a lengthy tradition of flyting – intense verbal jousting, often laced with vulgarity, that is similar to the dozens that one finds among contemporary inner-city, African-American youth. Both cultures accord high marks to satire. The skilled use of satire takes this verbal jousting to its ultimate level – one step short of a fist fight.”

“Beverly Hills Cop,” “Boyz N the Hood” make cut.

The Los Angeles Times top-10 list of movies that best reflect L.A. city life and culture is filled with Black star power. Among the contributions are: Jackie Brown, starring Pam Grier and Samuel L. Jackson; Boyz N the Hood, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne and Ice Cube; Beverly Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy; and Collateral, starring Jamie Foxx. The movies included were all released within the past 25 years and feature the L.A. landscape as a “main character” in the script.

“Lakeview Terrace” minimizes its Madea factor

Apparently, Hollywood can only accommodate one crazy Black woman character at a time. Samuel L. Jackson’s new film Lakeview Terrace, co-starring Ray’s Kerry Washington, cut a scene in which Washington appears to “lose it” on camera. Washington, who plays the wife in a couple terrorized by their neighbor, pretends to seduce the next-door character, Jackson, but then pulls a knife on him. “It got removed,” she says. “The producers felt like, at that point in the film, my character was the only sane one and they needed her to stay sane in the mix. She was losing it.” Madea would surely be disappointed with the decision.