I said something a bit rude in my guide, and I’m sticking to it. If you’re into hip hop even vaguely and you haven’t paid attention to the Beastie Boys, you’re an idiot.
There. Said it again.
Beastie Boys Book is the story of the band told by Mike D and Ad-Rock, Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz. I read it in 2018, the year it came out. It’s huge, it’s funny and it’s all over the place, in the best possible way, which is pretty much the band in book form.
More than the party song
Anyone who thinks they’re just “Fight for Your Right” needs to think again. That song is what a lot of people know them for, and the book is honest about how odd that is. It started as a joke about a certain kind of party anthem, and plenty of people took it at face value.
What came after is the real story. Three New York kids who started out in the punk scene, fell for hip hop and kept changing shape. They made records full of samples, played their own instruments, went off in directions nobody expected and somehow pulled most of it off.
They were there right at the start of Def Jam, with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. They opened for Madonna on tour, to crowds who mostly had no idea who they were, and toured with Run-DMC. The book is full of those moments, told by the people who lived them, with all the daft bits left in.
Licensed to Ill made them huge. Paul’s Boutique came next, built from a mountain of samples, and at the time a lot of people didn’t know what to make of it. It’s now seen as one of the great sample records ever made. After that they picked up their instruments again for Check Your Head and kept going from there. Every album sounds like a band refusing to repeat itself.
They’ve been conscious, they’ve been creative. They grew up in public, and the book doesn’t hide the early stuff they’re not proud of. MCA in particular became a real voice for doing better, and the whole book is a tribute to him.
How they built the book
The way Mike D and Ad-Rock pulled this book together shows just how creative these guys are. It doesn’t read like a normal memoir. There are their own chapters, side by side, and pieces from friends and other writers. There are photos, lists, comic strips, and even recipes. It’s a scrapbook with a story running through it.
Most of all it’s a love letter to Adam Yauch, MCA, who died in 2012. You can feel the gap he left on every page. They remember him with humour and with real affection.
The line from the book that’s in my guide could be their motto. “A good path to creating something mediocre is having rigid rules for what you’re making and how you’re making it.”
I love that, because it’s how they made music. And it’s how hip hop has always worked for me. Where’s the sample? There’s always a hook in there somewhere, if you’re willing to dig for it and flip it into something new. Rigid rules don’t leave much room for that.
That’s a lesson that goes way beyond music. Maybe you’ve only ever done things one way, because that’s how they’re done. This book is a nudge to try something odd and see what happens. Some of it won’t work. Some of it might surprise you.
I’ve been a DJ since 1987, and hip hop has been the soundtrack the whole way through. The Beastie Boys are still on my running playlist now, next to Public Enemy, Brand Nubian and Chubb Rock. Some records take you straight back to other times in your life, and theirs do that for me.
In my world, they’re geniuses. If you only know the one song, this book will show you what you’ve been missing. And if you’re already a fan, it’ll make you go back and play the albums again.
It’s the first book in the music chapter of my free guide, 50 Books That Shaped Me. You’ll find the stories behind plenty more records I love in there.
Go on, give them a proper listen. Start with the one you think you know.
