![]() ![]() Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin is often credited for bringing rock and rap together, but Run-D.M.C. That’s also the reason I’m referring to the Beastie Boys: the rock influence. Ironically, as far as image goes, they would have seemed to bring ‘white’ and ‘black’ together with their fusion of rock and rap, when in fact rock ‘n roll originally was black music. Why the ‘racial profiling’, anyhow? Because they called themselves White Boys, thus making the fact that they were white boys doing black music a part of their ‘mission’. In the Beastie Boys there are three rappers, whereas the White Boys were more like a white Run-D.M.C. That’s where the Beasties analogy starts to fall apart. From what I’m gathering from “On a Mission”, they were from Queens, New York and consisted of two rappers, Exact and Precise and one third member, possibly guitarist Mr. The sometimes too succint source of rap knowledge, Ego Trip’s ‘Book of Rap Lists’, credits one of hip-hop’s most slept-on producers, T-Ray, as a member of this group. Or maybe they came up with the name themselves. It’s easy to imagine he thought of his Fat Boys when he gave the world the White Boys. Once he realized how marketable the concept was, their manager Charles Stettler exploited the gimmick to no end. The Fat Boys derived their name from their popular “Fat Boys” single when they still were the Disco 3. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that the White Boys were on the same label as them. One of the most successful hip-hop acts of the ’80s were the Fat Boys. Plus the fact that it was released on Tin Pan Apple Records. Most of them could apply to either rock or rap (“We Live to Rock”, “On a Mission”, “This Is Hardcore”, “Running the Show”, “Pump Me Up”, “You Can’t Stop Us Now”, “Listen Up”), but it was “Coolin’ in the Crib” that made me think this had to be a rap album. But what gave them away to me were their songtitles. The only thing that hints at a hip-hop context are their crossed arms (the classic b-boy stance). It has them lined up wearing black leather jackets, having seemingly just been released from the care of their hairstylists. Judging solely from the cover of this album, the White Boys could have been the usual ’80s rock trio that was on whatever rock-related ‘mission’. I always wondered why such a successful format as the Beastie Boys was never copied by any label trying to jump on the bandwagon.
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