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Borough boys
An interview with Beastie prankster Adam Horovitz
BY MATT ASHARE

Back in the ’80s, when three upper-middle-class New York Jewish college kids in a hardcore punk band hooked up with budding hip-hop producer Rick Rubin and made rap history with the mega-hit album Licensed to Ill (Def Jam; 1986), Beastie Boys were for sure an oddity. White people just didn’t make hip-hop — at least not good hip-hop. And Beastie Boys were the real deal, albeit an over-the-top and playful version of an Evander Holyfield, with all the punching power (thanks to the AC/DC power-chord backing tracks), a lot more charisma, and what appeared to be the staying power of your average heavyweight champ. In other words, Licensed to Ill had novelty written all over it, and the idea that two decades later we’d still be talking about Beastie Boys with any degree of seriousness was as far-fetched as Mike Tyson getting his title back. Indeed, Beastie Boys — King Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz), Mike D (Michael Diamond), and MCA (Adam Yauch) — are no longer an oddity. They’re a full-fledged anomaly in a realm where 30 is over the hill and the average life span of a hip-hop career is a couple of albums. Rappers may stick around for longer than that, but Beastie Boys have few if any peers. It would be hard to find another hip-hop outfit that’s remained as relevant and lucrative for 20 years. And as they gear up for a tour that brings them to the Worcester Centrum this Tuesday, the Beasties can look back over a career that’s included three groundbreaking albums as well a new CD, To the 5 Boroughs (Capitol), that demonstrates just how good a hip-hop entity they are even when they’re simply doing what they love best — words ’n’ beats rap — and not trying to take hip-hop in a new direction.

The trio of CDs that established Beastie Boys as more than just another gang of word slingers — Licensed to Ill, with its heavy-metal-meets-hip-hop arrangements; 1989’s Paul’s Boutique (Capitol), with its Dust Brothers sample-based sonic experimentalism; and 1998’s Hello Nasty (Capitol), with its 180-degree turn away from sampling and back to the old-school values of two turntables and, well, three microphones — aren’t just artistic triumphs. They’re albums that did much to alter the direction of hip-hop. In the meantime, through their involvement with Tibet and the Dalai Lama, the trio brought an air of political consciousness to their often party-oriented atmosphere. And by bringing artists like DJ Mixmaster Mike and keyboardist Money Mark on board, both live and in the studio, while also returning to their own instruments from the hardcore-punk days, Beastie Boys have continued to build bridges between hip-hop and other styles of music. Not bad for something that started off as a "Cookiepuss" joke.

Getting any member of the group, but especially Horovitz, to take any of the above seriously is no easy feat. Even in this election year, the trio seem reluctant to let their playful guards down. But we did our best to draw the amused and amusing Horowitz out of his Beastie Boy shell. Here’s some of what he had to say.

Q: I’ve seen you a number of times over the years playing in various configurations. What’s it going to be this time?

A: We have everybody. That means, you’ve got me, Adam, and Mike. You’ve got Mixmaster Mike. You got Keyboard Money Mark. And you’ve Alfredo Ortez on percussion. He’s toured with us before. It seems to be working out well for him.

Q: Are you going to have your instruments on stage to do some playing of your own?

A: We might.

Q: You might?

A: No, we will. I’m just trying to make it more mysterious than it really is.

Q: Hip-hop artists don’t tend to have long careers. How do you explain yours?

A: I think it’s raw sex appeal. I think it’s stunning good looks, for one. Model-like presence. Stoic. Intelligent. Good team players.

Q: Sounds as if you were signing up for an Internet dating service. . . .

A: I like long walks . . . No, I don’t know . . . what am I supposed to say?

Q: Well, maybe it’s because you started as a rock band and you’re more of a rock band than a rap group.

A: Well, not even many rock bands stick around for twentysomething years.

Q: It’s hard to put up with the same people year after year in an artistic collaboration.

A: You’re telling me. It’s been 24 years. But I don’t know. I don’t know what to compare us to. I think we’re just what we are. We definitely just love rap music, so that’s part of it.

Q: One thing you’ve accomplished that not even many rock bands have done is that you’ve made a number of groundbreaking albums. Have you just lucked into that, or has it been a conscious effort?

A: Well, I thought Paul’s Boutique was going to be groundbreaking, but then De La Soul beat us to the punch with their album. The thing about rap, though, is that it’s different from rock, reggae, punk rock, or whatever. You’re supposed to sound like a particular era of time in rock or punk rock. But in rap, you wouldn’t be caught dead trying to sound like something from the ’80s. So we just decided to make shit that sounded like something from the ’80s, and somehow it worked.

Q: You did that by bringing back the notion of the DJ when it seemed that sampling was making the art of the DJ superfluous.

A: How can we get paid for that? A lot of rappers don’t even have DJs now. We’ve got the number one DJ in the world, and he’s got the belts and the titles to prove it. But it’s not like a lot of other artists are really doing it. Missy Elliott might be, and there’s some of that going on on some of Nas’s albums. Still, most rappers aren’t trying to sound old.

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Issue Date: October 8 - 14, 2004
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