what do Black People think of the Beastie Boys?

[Freejooky]

I was thinking about this recently - next to LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys are probably the longest-standing rap artists out there, having sustained a now 20-year career while remaining relevant and authentic.

But what do black people think of the Beastie Boys? I'm sure that there's been stigma because they're white, and a bit experimental within the confines of mainstream hip hop (incorporating bossa nova, dub, expressing their roots with hardcore freakouts and meandering rare groove workouts at times), and frankly a bit goofy, jokey, and corny at times.

Yet, the Beasties are about as authentic as it gets in hip hop; they were a part of the culture before most current rap artists were even fans, and they've retained the spirit of hip hop, relying on analogue beat boxes, crusty breakbeats, and their record collections while the industry has moved on to souless keyboards. If anything, they should get the most respect.

But what do Black People think of them?

[Scoundrel Swanswater]

I would venture that some would like it and some not.
Speaking as a white person, I think they are extremely over-rated.
Every cd has maybe one or two songs which are listenable.
But I am white, so you don't want to know, right? :wally

[Futile Gesture]

Black people do not have a hive mind.

[An Arky]

This is purely anecdotal, but a couple of friends of mine thought they were funny, had some decent beats, etc., but didn't have much opinion other than that. So I asked them straight up if they thought they were ripping off black artists. One of them laughed and said "..and that makes them different from other white artists HOW?"...

[lissener]

Not only do they not have a hive mind, they don't own the concept of "hiphop."

Which is more racist: allowing a musical development to spread and generate new followers, regardless of their race? Or white people refusing to perform "black music," and a segregation of styles? That concept is far scarier than the eternal logrolling of musical influences.

Also, Ill Communication is in my lifetime top ten or fifteen albums; it's singularly brilliant from beginning to end.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by An Arky

So I asked them straight up if they thought they were ripping off black artists. One of them laughed and said "..and that makes them different from other white artists HOW?"...

Who were they ripping off? As Freejooky correctly notes, they've been around longer than almost anybody going today. They didn't invent the genre, but that doesn't mean they ripped their style off from anybody.

[cryptic_j]

Doesn't all modern music orginate someway down the line from black artists???

The Beatles started off with Rock'n'Roll - - but that doesn't mean that something like "Help!" or "Elenor Rigby" was a rip-off of black music...

I've never been a fan of the Beasty Boys - and I'm white... (so yeah you didn't want my opinion) - - but I also make hip-hop music - - I have respect for the Beasty boys because they do what they do.. which I think is what Hip-Hop is about... and anyone can do that I think..

Of any race..

sorry, I got a bit deep there...

[An Arky]

Originally Posted by Marley23

Who were they ripping off? As Freejooky correctly notes, they've been around longer than almost anybody going today. They didn't invent the genre, but that doesn't mean they ripped their style off from anybody.

He was laughing when he said it, and I believe he was referring to the traditional influence of "black" music on "white" music, not making a direct accusation of specific thievery.

[Jack Sayid]

Considering that they get virtually no airplay on Hip Hop radio stations, not much.

Despite their heavy Hip Hop elements, the Beastie Boys are still very much in the predominately white, Alternative Rock arena.

Having said that, I still think Paul's Boutique is the best Hip Hop album of all-time.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by cryptic_j

Doesn't all modern music orginate someway down the line from black artists???

Country?

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Miller

Country?

Eh, I guess you could argue that country and the blues are both folk music, so... I don't know. It's not like any black leaders are going to try and claim credit for country anyway.

[PaulFitzroy]

Death metal bears almost no resemblance to the blues structure.

[ftg]

I can assure you that many (if not most) urban hiphop fans know Beastie Boys for what that are and always have been: a parody of hiphop. Sometimes the parody is good and people enjoy it, sometimes it is bad and that really reeks. But certainly not generally considered to be a "straight" hiphop group.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by Marley23

Eh, I guess you could argue that country and the blues are both folk music, so... I don't know. It's not like any black leaders are going to try and claim credit for country anyway.

Every culture on the planet has its own folk music. Blacks can't have started all of them.

Originally Posted by PaulFitzroy

Death metal bears almost no resemblance to the blues structure.

Maybe not, but you can draw a direct evolutionary line from death metal back through heavy metal, through rock, and straight back to the blues. (Yeah, I'm sure I'm leaving out a couple steps.)

What about electronica?

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Miller

Every culture on the planet has its own folk music. Blacks can't have started all of them.

That's completely true. There is a real connection between the blues and country, but it might be European music rather than African. I'm not saying country IS descended from black music so much as I'm wondering if you could make the argument.

[Ghanima]

To veer totally off-topic, I always was of the opinion that metal actually is far more similar to classical music than to blues. Both use lots of scales and are quite patterned and kind of mathematical, wouldn't you agree? And BTW, to say that black people invented all forms of music is just silly.

[Cisco]

Originally Posted by Jack Sayid

Considering that they get virtually no airplay on Hip Hop radio stations, not much.

It has always kind of irked me that whenever the Beastie Boys come out with a new rap record it gets played all over the "new rock" stations and isn't even mentioned on the hip-hop stations.

Same as how Eminem (never realized how weird that name was until I tried to type it and then said it outloud a few times) will occasionally get played on a new rock station but you will never hear, say, Lenny Kravitz on a hip-hop station.

It's almost like a triple standard.

[Cisco]

Originally Posted by Ghanima

To veer totally off-topic, I always was of the opinion that metal actually is far more similar to classical music than to blues. Both use lots of scales and are quite patterned and kind of mathematical, wouldn't you agree? And BTW, to say that black people invented all forms of music is just silly.

I've noticed that a lot of the super-heavy death metal types (Six Feet Under, Dimu Borgir, Cradle of Filth maybe?) will try to "legitimize" themselves by associating themselves with classical music. That way when people say that their music is just a bunch of noise they can come back saying that they took X number of years of classical guitar lessons and their favorite musician is Mozart, and then proceed to play a bunch of noise .

[Cluricaun]

An anecdote:

Once upon a time (early 90's or so) some friends and I were hanging out, skateboarding in a friends apartment complex parking lot. The car doors were open and we were blasting Ill Communication, which was brand new about this time. A man came out of his building (I'll mention he was darker skinned only in relevance to the OP) and came over to ask us what we were jamming to.

"Oh, it's the new Beastie Boys"

He didn't say anything for the duration of the track that was playing. Then,

"Are they white?" Not with any negative inflections, just out of honest curiosity.

"Ahhhh....Yeah..They are"

Again, no reply for the rest of the next track. A smile crept across his face...slowly...

"Man, that's some dope shit."

With that he went back inside.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by Marley23

That's completely true. There is a real connection between the blues and country, but it might be European music rather than African. I'm not saying country IS descended from black music so much as I'm wondering if you could make the argument.

Possibly, although it's my understanding that country was influenced primarily by Irish folk. I could be totally wrong about that, though.

[BytopianDream]

Originally Posted by Miller

What about electronica?

[hijack]
As far as I understand it:

R&B/Generic Pop -> Disco -> House -> Techno -> Everything else considered "electronica."

Techno and House were developed nearly in the same time, but in different places, Detroit or Berlin for Techno and Chicago for House. Of course, the story may have changed from when I had street cred in the electronica scene. I'm sure there is probably a website out there with a history. Whether it is correct or not is anyone's guess.
[/hijack]

Beastie Boys is white hip-hop. They did open doors for black hip-hop though. They exposed the middle class white kids to hip-hop. Hip-hop became popular not just in part to black kids in the urban environment, but also because of suburban white kids looking for that next great "piss off the parent/establishment/whatever" thing. Beastie Boys were the "gateway" music as it were.

[ultrafilter]

It's probably worth its own thread, but pretty much all western music can be traced back to the blues. While some modern forms may bear little resemblance, the influence is still there. And death metal is closer than some of the other stuff out there.

For what it's worth, allmusic has this to say about the Beasties:

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.

[ultrafilter]

Originally Posted by Ghanima

To veer totally off-topic, I always was of the opinion that metal actually is far more similar to classical music than to blues. Both use lots of scales and are quite patterned and kind of mathematical, wouldn't you agree?

Well, a lot of metal owes something to Bathory/Quorthon, and what Quorthon did was to bring a direct classical influence to the metal of the time. So yes, it does have quite a bit in common with classical music.

And BTW, to say that black people invented all forms of music is just silly.

Well, if we're all from Africa originally, and music came about as early as is generally believed, then in a very real sense, black people did invent all music.

[monstro]

In the mid-80s, my brother was listening to the BBs along with Dougie Fresh and Run DMC. Personally, I like "Brass Monkey" BBs more than "Sabotage" BBs. But then again, hip hop lost most of its appeal for me post-1995. The Beastie Boys of the 80s represents the "good old days".

[quote]It has always kind of irked me that whenever the Beastie Boys come out with a new rap record it gets played all over the "new rock" stations and isn't even mentioned on the hip-hop stations.