Hip-Hop icons LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys have been announced as inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame next year. Dope! Read on...
LL Cool J
LL Cool J always had his sights set on rock & roll. Born James Todd Smith in Queens, New York, LL was only 17 in 1985 when he recorded “Rock the Bells,” which included the following couplet: “It ain’t the glory days with Bruce Springsteen/I’m not a virgin so I know I’ll make Madonna scream.” A year earlier, LL had made his debut on Def Jam, which was also the debut of the label itself. His first two singles – “I Need a Beat” followed by “I Want You” – sketched out the two main gears of his career: testosterone-maddened battle raps and tender, sexy love songs. The former included “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” (1985), “Jack the Ripper” (1987) and “Mama Said Knock You Out” (1991). The stylish aggression built into these songs influenced no less a figure than Michael Jackson, who cut “Bad” after meeting LL in person – and after LL himself cut “I’m Bad.” The love songs may have been even more influential and popular. When “I Need Love” went to Number One on Billboard’s Hot R&B Singles chart in 1987, it was the first rap recording ever to reach that summit. Like Stevie Wonder at Motown, LL Cool J has spent the whole of his 26-year career at Def Jam. His success in music has served as a launching pad to concurrent careers in the movies, on television, in fashion, and in fitness.
Beastie Boys
At different times over the past three decades, the Beastie Boys have been shaven-head punks, hip-hop bad boys, Seventies-funk students, political activists and style icons. Most important: they have had one of the richest, most important careers in hip-hop and rock, introducing rap to a huge new audience and then pushing the frontiers of what a hip-hop group could do. Their 1986 debut album Licensed To Ill – a supremely bratty, hard-punching, pitch-perfect mix of rap and hard rock – was hip-hop's first number one album, and remains near the top of the Billboard catalog charts to this day. The single “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party),” became a teenage party anthem of the 1980s; a generation of hip-hop fans memorized hits like “Brass Monkey” and “Paul Revere,” songs which are now part of the rap canon. Their follow-up, 1989’s Paul’s Boutique, was one of the high points of hip-hop's golden age of sampling, piling hilarious, streetwise rhymes over everything from Loggins and Messina to the Ramones. In the 1990s, they came full circle musically, picking up their instruments and bringing back hardcore punk and funk into their music repertoire. They recorded three classic albums, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty, and smash hits like “Sabotage” and “Intergalactic.” Along the way, they've kept experimenting with what a hip-hop band can be: becoming the most politically active group of their generation with the Tibetan Freedom Concerts; recording classic videos; putting their fans behind the camera with their film Awesome I F**king Shot That, and recording two new albums in the last decade, 2004's To the Five Boroughs and 2007's The Mix-Up.
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