Last year, the world lost a great filmmaker when John Singleton passed away. Next Tuesday (April 28) will mark the one-year anniversary since Singleton left us, and it looks like the approaching date has Ice Cube taking a trip down memory lane. Aside from bringing us films such as Baby Boy, Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Four Brothers, Singleton also made history with his directorial debut, Boyz n the Hood.

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The film starred Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, Nia Long, Laurence Fishburne, Regina King, Angela Bassett, and Ice Cube. It's been hailed as a classic Black film that generations continue to enjoy, notably because there was a true-to-life essence that stemmed from being shot on location with effects that evoked natural reactions from the cast. Ice Cube recently tweeted a photo of himself and his co-stars on the Boyz n the Hood set with John Singleton and revisited one of those memories.

"Rehearsing the Crenshaw scene for Boyz N Tha Hood," he wrote in the caption. "John never told us that it would be real gun fire during the scene. All reactions were real. John was brilliant. I miss him." Check out the tweet and the scene he's referring to below.

Hollywood lost one of its most endearing sweethearts last week following news that actress Esther Scott died on Valentine’s Day following a heart attack at her home in Santa Monica.

Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival

Scott was found unconscious last Tuesday after suffering the heart attack, eventually passing away this past Friday after being hospitalized for a few days. Family members who were by her side in those final days confirmed her death to TMZ. She’s known most famously for being a supporting actress in many movies and television shows since beginning her career in the mid 1980s as the voice of Shodu Warrick on the ABC cartoon series Star Wars: Ewoks. Some of her other prominent roles include playing a grandmother in the 1991 classic Boyz n the Hood, Auntie Pearl on the ’90s sitcom The Steve Harvey Show, Aunt Ethel in the 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls and a recurring role as Delma Warner on The CW’s comedic drama Hart of Dixie just to name a few. One of her last roles was playing Bridget Turner in the award-winning film The Birth of a Nation back in 2016, which she attended the premiere for at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah (seen above) looking as beautiful as ever. She will surely be missed on film and in life.

R.I.P Esther Scott. Watch a clip of her and the other women of The Birth of a Nation discussing their roles in the powerful film below:

Ice Cube is one of hip-hop’s most prolific songwriters to ever pick up a pen or reach for a microphone. His writing ability singlehandedly helped the west coast rise to prominence in the late ’80s and he’s also responsible for penning one of the greatest diss tracks in all-time in “No Vaseline.” However, as of the two decades, the Los Angeles-based lyricist has become a media mogul producing his own movies and running his very own professional basketball association in the BIG3. 

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Recently, the gangsta rap pioneer made his way to the Uproxx office as a guest on Talib Kweli and Jasmin Leigh’s coveted podcast entitled the People’s Party with Talib Kweli to discuss his legacy, his impact on the culture, the success of the BIG3, and more. 

With hip-hop purists being cognizant of his pen, the discussion of Ice Cube’s songwriting influence during N.W.A’s early days arose to which he revealed the inspiration behind writing Eazy-E’s most popular song, “Boyz N The Hood.” Cube revealed that he had initially written the cinematic song for a Queens-based rap collective called, Homeboys Only, but they were utterly confused by the context of the song as he described how Dr. Dre influenced Eazy-E to the deliver rhymes. During the interview, Cube said:

“The lyrics was foreign to them. ‘You talking another language, man.’ And I was. It was the sh*t we talk about out here. They didn’t understand what I was talking about so they rejected it and then Dre convinced Eazy to do it.”

The “Steady Mobbin” rapper then went on to reveal that the storytelling raps that he admired during that time influenced him to write the bars stating:

 “It was in the nature of (Ice-T’s) ‘6 in the Mornin,’ (Schoolly D’s) ‘P.S.K. (What Does It Mean?),’ so it was in that vein of telling a story. We was all fans of Slick Rick and fans of KRS(-One)… So those was my favorite cats at the time and so I wanted to make a rhyme that talked about what I knew about: Everything going on in the neighborhood.”

With the BIG3 continuously growing and Talib Kweli hoarding music the culture needs, both hip-hop legends have plenty of more to contribute to today’s rap climate. Also, with Ice Cube and Talib Kweli as charismatic of a unit as they are in an interview setting, this episode of the People’s Party has the potential to be one of the greatest pieces of content, Uproxx and Kweli have released to date. 

Check out the clip of Ice Cube revealing his inspiration behind writing Eazy-E’s “Boyz N The Hood” below and look out for the full episode of People’s Party with Talib Kweli featuring Ice Cube dropping on Monday, Feb. 3.