Beastie Boys Biography
As the first white rap group of any importance, the
Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident hip-hop musicians, who
accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore
punk group in 1981. But the Beasties weren't pirating -- they treated rap as
part of a post-punk musical underground, where the do-it-yourself aesthetics of
hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart. Of course, the exaggerated b-boy and
frat-boy parodies of their unexpected hit debut album, Licensed to Ill, didn't
help their cause. For much of the mid-'80s, the Beastie Boys were considered as
macho clowns, and while their ambitious, Dust
Brothers-produced second album, Paul's
Boutique, dismissed that theory, it was ignored by both the public and the
press at the time. In retrospect, it was one of the first albums to predict the
genre-bending, self-referential pop kaleidoscope of '90s pop. The Beasties
refined their eclectic approach with 1992's Check
Your Head, where they played their own instruments. Check
Your Head brought the Beasties back to the top of the charts, and within a
few years, they were considered one of the most influential and ambitious groups
of the '90s, cultivating a musical community not only through their music,
but with their record label, Grand Royal, and their magazine of the same name.
It was remarkable turn of events for a group that
demonstrated no significant musical talent on their first records. All three
members of the Beastie Boys -- Mike
D (born Mike
Diamond, November 20, 1966), MCA (born Adam
Yauch, August 5, 1965), and Ad-Rock (born Adam
Horovitz, October 31, 1967) -- came from wealthy middle-class Jewish
families in New York and had become involved in the city's punk underground when
they were teenagers in the early '80s. Diamond
and Yauch
formed the Beastie Boys with drummer Kate
Schellenbach and guitarist John
Berry in 1981, and the group began playing underground clubs around New
York. The following year, the Beasties released the 7" EP Pollywog
Stew on the indie Rat Cage to little attention. That year, the band met Horovitz,
who had formed the hardcore group the Young and the Useless. By early 1983, Schellenbach
and Berry
had left the group -- they would later join Luscious
Jackson and Thwig, respectively -- and Horovitz
had joined the Beasties. The revamped group released the rap record "Cookie
Puss" as a 12" single later in 1983. Based on a prank phone call the
group made to Carvel Ice Cream, the single became an underground hit in New
York. By early 1984, however, they had abandoned punk and turned their attention
to rap.
In 1984, the Beasties joined forces with producer Rick
Rubin, a heavy metal and hip-hop fan who had recently founded Def
Jam Records with fellow New York University student Russell
Simmons. Def Jam officially signed the Beastie Boys in 1985, and that year
they had a hit single from the soundtrack to Krush Groove with "She's on
It," a rap track that sampled AC/DC's
"Back in Black" and suggested the approach of the group's forthcoming
debut album. The Beasties received their first significant national exposure
later in 1985, when they opened for Madonna
on her Virgin Tour. The trio taunted the audience with profanity and were
generally poorly received. One other major tour, as the openers for Run-D.M.C.'s
ill-fated Raisin' Hell trek, followed before Licensed to Ill was released late
in 1986. An amalgam of street beats, metal riffs, b-boy jokes, and satire,
Licensed to Ill was interpreted as a mindless, obnoxious party record by many
critics and conservative action groups, but that didn't stop the album from
becoming the fastest-selling debut in Columbia Records' history, moving over
750,000 copies in its first six weeks. Much of that success was due to the
single "Fight for Your Right (To Party)," which became a massive
crossover success. In fact, Licensed to Ill became the biggest-selling rap album
of the '80s, which generated much criticism from certain hip-hop fans who
believed that the Beasties were merely cultural pirates. On the other side of
the coin, the group was being attacked from the right, who claimed their lyrics
were violent and sexist and that their concerts -- which featured female
audience members dancing in go-go cages and a giant inflatable penis, similar to
what the Stones used in their mid-'70s concerts -- caused even more outrage.
Throughout their 1987 tour, they were plagued with arrests and lawsuits, and
were accused of inciting crime.
While much of the Beasties' exaggeratedly obnoxious
behavior started out as a joke, it became a self-parody by the end of 1987, so
it wasn't a surprise that the group decided to revamp their sound and image
during the next two years. During 1988, they became involved in a bitter lawsuit
with Def Jam and Rick
Rubin, who claimed he was responsible for the group's success and threatened
to release outtakes as their second album. The group finally broke away by the
end of the year and relocated to California, where they signed with Capitol
Records. While in California, they met the production team the Dust Brothers,
and they convinced the duo to use their prospective debut album as the basis for
the Beasties' second album, Paul's
Boutique. Densely layered with interweaving samples and pop culture
references, the retro-funk-psychedelia of Paul's
Boutique was entirely different than Licensed to Ill, and many observers
weren't quite sure what to make of it. Several publications gave it rave
reviews, but when it