Beastie Boys

The Beastie Boys are streetwise smart-alecks turned hip-hop heavyweights, always holding tight to their class-clown attitude no matter how stellar their status. In the ’80s, a rapping crew of three skinny, Jewish, ex-punk rockers couldn’t have seemed like a sure thing, but when Rick Rubin fused sledgehammer rock riffs to the Beasties’ high-school-rebel rhymes on “Fight for Your Right,” the trio’s future was platinum-plated. From then on, the world was their mixtape, as they backed their raps with samples of everything from EPMD to Dr. John on postmodern party-starter “Pass the Mic,” and shouted out to baseball slugger Rod Carew over funky flute riffs on “Sure Shot.”

The Beasties bring together fierce, funky lightning and heavy metal thunder, in Next Steps.

In the crazy-quilt world of the Beastie Boys, every leftfield pop-culture collision can spawn a slammin’ track. “She’s Crafty” calls out a woman’s wily ways with Led Zeppelin licks bouncing off a D.C.-drenched go-go groove. The Dust Brothers-produced second album, Paul’s Boutique, pulled out all the stops — “The Sounds of Science” twists time into a pretzel, taking the Beasties on a freaky, far-out journey, then flinging them back onto their funky feet with some James Brown breakbeats. And “Flute Loop” stirs up a heady blend by dropping some Lee “Scratch” Perry dub science on psychedelic jazz-rock riffs, with the Beasties rapping from what sounds like the bottom of a 40-story elevator shaft.

Hear the Beasties go from wild-and-crazy teens to full-grown funkmasters, in Deep Cuts.

The Beastie Boys started as scrappy teenage pranksters bringing a screwy sense of humor to the hip-hop scene on kooky cuts like “Cooky Puss.” By the ’90s, they were flexing their funk muscles, firing off juicy soul-jazz jams like “Groove Holmes,” a Hammond-heavy homage to the late, great organ ace of the same name. And even after three decades together, they’re still bringing the heat, with Hot Sauce Committee Part Two — as Ad-Rock himself puts it on “Nonstop Disco Powerpack,” the Beasties are “bona fide, qualified, with a story to tell,” as they bust into middle age with as much attitude as ever.

Ad-Rock, Mike D, and the late MCA were wisecracking New York hip-hop kids who grew up in public and went on to conquer the world. They were crazy enough to push hip-hop to its limits and beyond, but crafty enough to break through to the big time too. The Beasties were the first rappers to reach the top of the Pop Album charts, and they’ve been racking up GRAMMY® awards and multiplatinum platters ever since. Busting down the doors between rock and hip-hop, they hit home for headbangers and B-boys alike, whether they were taking over MTV with the weapons-grade rhymes of “Sabotage” or engaging in some real sonic sabotage by bringing Biz Markie on board for an aural assault on Elton John’s “Benny & The Jets.” And now we’re serving up a sizzling platter of the Beastie Boys’ hottest tracks from all across their history-making reign as hip-hop rulers.