Beastie Boys

The band's founding scene is a hardcore matinee, not a garage: Mike Diamond went to see Bad Brains as a teenager and, as he told Loud and Quiet, "that was also the show where me and John met [Adam] Yauch, so there wouldn't even be a band without it." Yauch kept paying that debt in specifics, later calling Bad Brains bassist Daryl Jenifer "the musician who most influenced my playing," and pointing listeners straight at the group's own hardcore tracks to hear it. Their first record was cut under that shadow, before rap or Rick Rubin entered the picture.

listen: upstream & heresource: Loud And Quiet — "Ad-Rock and Mike D zero in on three pivotal relationships that built the band" (Bad Brains origin story, Run-D.M.C. touring/mentorship) ↗share

1980

Pay to CumBad Brains

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1982

Egg Raid on MojoBeastie Boys

listen forAdam Yauch remembered Bad Brains as, in his words, "the first band to really push the tempo up that far" and "much more intense musicians than just the regular punk act." "Pay to Cum" proves it: under a minute of hurtled words with no space between beats. "Egg Raid on Mojo," cut on the Polly Wog Stew EP two years later, chases the same redline — shouted, overlapping vocals racing a drummer who won't let the tempo breathe, the sound of teenagers keeping pace with the band that started them.

Run-D.M.C. wrote and demoed "Slow and Low" for 1985's King of Rock, then dropped it from the album. Mike Diamond, in the band's memoir, doesn't call it a tribute: "We thought it was great and were completely baffled that they'd left it off their album, so we covered it" — nearly word for word, save for swapping their own names into Run-D.M.C.'s lines. The debt ran further than one song: Ad-Rock told Loud and Quiet that opening for Run-D.M.C. on tour "really taught us how to be a rap group," watching DJ Jam Master Jay work a crowd every night before they ever headlined one.

listen: upstream & heresource: Loud And Quiet — "Ad-Rock and Mike D zero in on three pivotal relationships that built the band" (Bad Brains origin story, Run-D.M.C. touring/mentorship) ↗share

1985

Slow and LowRun-D.M.C.

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1986

Slow and LowBeastie Boys

listen forRun-D.M.C.'s demo of "Slow and Low," unreleased until a 2005 reissue, is plain and unhurried — a spare drum-machine loop, Run and DMC trading lines in their usual clipped deadpan. The Beastie Boys' 1986 version keeps the same words, same skeletal beat, same tempo, and swaps in a completely different voice: three downtown kids shouting the exact lines for laughs, the mix pushed loud and cavernous where the original stayed lean. Same song, opposite temperament.

Rick Rubin — their college-age DJ, soon their producer, soon Def Jam's co-founder — brought the record collection that changed their sample vocabulary. "Rick definitely came from a whole AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Long Island, like, rock background," Mike Diamond said. "We got real into it, and into the idea of Led Zeppelin having beats." Ad-Rock admitted the appeal ran through hip-hop DJs, not childhood fandom: "I used to hate bands like Led Zeppelin. But when hip hop DJs started using those chunky riffs, we started checking out old metal shit again."

listen: upstream & heresource: Ultimate Classic Rock — "When Beastie Boys Stole Led Zeppelin Samples for 'Licensed to Ill'" (Rick Rubin's rock background, Led Zeppelin samples) ↗share

1971

When the Levee BreaksLed Zeppelin

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1986

Rhymin & StealinBeastie Boys

listen forJohn Bonham's drum intro to "When the Levee Breaks" is a slow, cavernous four-bar loop, recorded in a stairwell and compressed until it sounds like it's collapsing in on itself. Beastie Boys loop that exact break as the entire beat under "Rhymin & Stealin," the album opener — the same lurching, room-swallowing thud, now carrying rapped verses instead of Robert Plant's harmonica wail. It's the most literal instance of the pattern: a seventies rock record's drum sound, lifted whole, becoming a hip-hop beat.