Scots Created Rap

When I saw an excerpt of this story on the Daily Rotten, essentially that Scots created rap, I thought it was the ultimate piece of academic crap - total rubbish - but to my greatest shock, the supposed academic pinhead pushing the crap rap theory is none other than Ferenc Szasz, who was my favorite history professor EVER at the University of New Mexico. And he's NEVER wrong, so.....

Scots created rap!:

Professor Ferenc Szasz argued that so-called rap battles, where two or more performers trade elaborate insults, derive from the ancient Caledonian art of "flyting".

According to the theory, Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap.

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.

He said: "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."

The academic, who specialises in American and Scottish culture at the University of New Mexico, made the link in a new study examining the historical context of Robert Burn's work.