The Beastie Boys are an American hip-hop music group from Brooklyn, New York formed in 1978. Its members are Mike D (Michael Diamond), MCA (Adam Yauch) and Ad Rock (Adam Horovitz), although several other musicians have played with the group for a long time.

The name of the band harks back to the band's punk days, when Beastie stood for for "Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence" - even though Kate Schellenbach (now Luscious Jackson) played with the band.

Influenced by Rick Rubin, the Beastie Boys changed from a punk rock outfit to a three-man hip hop crew. Rubin formed the Boys into immature machos, which meant getting rid of Kate. He would buy them matching jumpsuits, but not any for Kate. He would urge them to put gigantic penises on stage. In general, he snubbed her, and they went along with it, so she left.

Imitating Run DMC and Schoolly D, they invaded the mainstream with their metal-tinged, slammin' hip hop. Their debut album Licensed to Ill came out in 1986 and their single "Fight for Your Right (To Party)", became a big hit. The Beastie Boys are supposedly the first to use the word "mullet" to describe this hair style.

The group matured with their second album, Paul's Boutique, produced mainly by the Dust Brothers. This extremely sample-heavy oeuvre is still considered one of the best hip hop albums ever.

The follow-up, Check Your Head, made up of instrumental and punk songs, which added to both the Beastie's creative range and re-claimed their status as the link between hip hop and rock. This was continued in Ill Communication, which contained the hit-single "Sabotage".

After several years of silence, their 1998 album Hello Nasty (hit-single "Intergalactic") saw a return to more "old school" hip-hop.

One Beastie Boys single, "Rock Hard," has been removed from print and is considered a rare collector's item. The group released this as a single in 1985, and it quickly went out of print. The song was to reappear on their 1999 The Sounds of Science anthology, but they had to cut it after AC/DC refused permission to use a sample from the song "Back in Black." Beastie Boys member Mike D reportedly talked to the band personally on the phone: "AC/DC could not get with the sample concept. They were just like, ‘Nothing against you guys, but we just don’t endorse sampling.’"

The Beastie Boys, who currently own the record label Grand Royal, are well-known representatives of the Free Tibet movement.

Beastie Boys Discography
Year Title Label
1986 Licensed to Ill Def Jam
1989 Paul's Boutique Capitol Records
1992 Check Your Head Grand Royal
1994 Ill Communication Grand Royal
1998 Hello Nasty Grand Royal