'Beastie Boys Story' Review: A rollicking journey of earning a place in rap history and the right to party
The Beastie Boys are set to deliver their Apple TV+ special 'Beastie Boys Story' on April 24. Directed by Spike Jonze, the two-hour show filmed at Kings Theater in Brooklyn reveals intimate details about the hip-hop band's beginnings, their long-lasting friendship and their rise to fame.
What started out as a group of misfits, jamming their instruments to usual teenage musical meanderings in the late '70s, the Beastie Boys Dj-scratched and bounced their way to fame after adding their cheekily exuberant spin to hip-hop.
Following a montage intro scored to their 1994 smash 'Sabotage' prepping your hype, we see members Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and Michael Diamond, aka Mike D, enter the stage, and we can tell this ain't your regular Beastie Boys concert, but rather something more personal.
"Now, tonight we're going to tell you the story of three kids that met and became friends, and did all kinds of crazy stuff together for over 30 years," Ad-Rock says before Mike D shares about the loss of their friend and bandmate Adam Yauch.
In a type of spoken diary extravaganza, the Beastie Boys divide the show into various chapters. In the first chapter, beginning with an introduction to their former member Kate Schellenbach, Ad-Rock and Mike D begin detail the series of events that led up to their friendship and band formation.
In 'All We Do is Listen to rap', the title of the second chapter, Mike D reveals, "In 1984 a song came out that would change the course of our band forever: 'Sucker MC's' by Run-DMC."
Ad-Rock and Mike D explained how the band studied Run-DMC's image and songs "all day", without the conscious intent to become a hip-hop band but just soaking in their love for rap music. In the chapter, we begin to see a theme emerge of the band's passion for music and hip-hop culture. From the get-go, the two appear very candid in sharing their story, with Mike D mimicking his excited teenage voice with each milestone of their success and Ad-Rock messing with the audience with playful jokes and intentional technical difficulties.
Between a mixture of the band who said "f**k it" at every dive into the creative pool, an audio cue of "crazy shit" whenever highlight moments are revealed and memories of wild parties and gigs, we can see that the Beastie Boys' energetic spirit has not been lost with age.
Being both grown-a** men, with children and all, the show is just so Beastie Boys and it is hard not to love its honesty.
We get to see photo after photo from their beginnings to adulthood, with perfect cues of their epic music betwixt the historical tales. They go on to share their early connections to Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, who they said pushed them into become full-fledged rap stars in 1984 when "no one cared about rap music. It was barely on the radio," per the words of Ad-Rock.
He says, "We had just started rapping. We were mediocre at best, but Rick and Russell believed in us and that gave us confidence."
As fans are aware, their breakout song '(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)' earned the band massive success in pulling an audience that the song was making fun of - jocks and fratboys. Ad-Rock and Mike D divulged on the song's success but also revealed how their ongoing success and stardom led to a downward spiral into the party culture.
Ad-Rock says, "It's not like we weren't having fun as friends. It's just the show started to become just that: a show, a f**king gimmick." Mike D adds, "In a flash, Beastie Boys went from being the funny tipsy guy with a lampshade on his head to the ugly drunk dude that people were trying to get out of their apartment."
It's surprising to learn that even the hype legends that are the Beastie Boys even faced their own moments of misery.
Beneath its playful surface, light-hearted humor, and humanization of tear-the-roof-down music, the Beastie Boys documentary is a manual for success without pretentiousness. Anyone wanting to start a band can find many gems in the 'Beastie Boys Story' that can inspire them to make a name for themselves just as the Beastie Boys did.
