by Marcas Grant

Created on: May 20, 2009

Thanksgiving 1986. I was visiting family in Houston and late one night while the adults were gathered together watching a movie, my cousins and I were getting ready for bed. Growing up in California, it was rare that we spent any time together and being several years younger than they, I was awestruck by most things they said. That night, as we flipped off the lights and prepared to drift off to sleep, one of them asked me...

"Have you ever heard The Beastie Boys?"

Being a nine-year boy old who was prone to fits of giggling, the name alone sent me into convulsions. I couldn't imagine what a Beastie Boy was let alone what their music would sound like.

A few months later, I'd not only heard of them, but I was the proud owner of a Licensed To Ill cassette tape that I played incessantly. I was mesmerized from the opening bass kick of Rhymin' & Stealin to the final rim-shots of Time To Get Ill.

At a time when I was just starting to define my own musical tastes (and listening to things besides whatever my parents had on the radio), this was a shock to the system. Sure, Run DMC and Aerosmith's pairing for Walk This Way changed the way people looked at rock and rap, but this was different. Was it a rap album with rock guts? Or a punk rock gift wrapped with a hip-hop bow? One minute it was driving you with hard guitar riffs, the next it was bobbing your head with turntable wizardry.

That was to say nothing of the Boys themselves. From the start MCA, King Ad Rock and Mike D were loud and brash. They were pirates (the loot and pillage kind, not the copyright infringing kind). They were rebels. They were the kids in the back of the class that unabashedly shot spitballs and said whatever they felt.

Look no further than Paul Revere, the absurdist hip-hop fairytale ballad that describes how our three heroes meet. In the days before rap music was fueled by tales of violence and misogyny, the Beasties' claims of mischief and intimidation were seen as nothing more than amusing schoolyard exaggeration. Who would believe that three guys from New York were in the desert on A Horse With A Famous Name? But only the Beastie Boys could give us the classic lyric I did it like this/I did it like that/I did it with a Wiffle Ball bat.

Still, there was one more trick they had for my nine-year old mind. One day while I was listening to the tape for the 1,038th time, my mother casually asked me, you know they're white, right?

I laughed. There's no such thing as white rappers, was my response.

I'm telling you. They are. They're going to be on Friday Night Videos tonight. Watch.

I waited with baited breath for Friday night, watching for my mother to be wrong. The Beasties were pirates. They were rebels. They were Wiffle Ball enthusiasts. But they weren't white. Couldn't be.

So I turned to NBC and gazed at the screen with anticipation. Finally the moment arrived. The triumphant Yeah! followed by the guitar opening of Fight For Your Right and there they were - as loud, unkempt and unruly as I'd imagined and white. For the next four minutes, I stared, slack-jawed with amazement, not wanting to blink, lest I miss something.

Nearly 25 years later, the Beasties continue to amaze. If you ask me now what a Beastie Boy sounds like, I'll tell you they sound like nobody else around.

Learn more about this author, Marcas Grant.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.