Bboys = not "edgy" in LTI days?

[milkboy009]

In the most recent issue of Complex (August/September 2007) Kanye West interviews fellow super-producer Mark Ronson. Here's an abbreviated excerpt:

KW: Most people hate rap music right now. It's in the hair-band phase.

MR:It's like disco... like instructional dance songs... When people have to be told what to do to have a good time, that's when I think music's lost.

KW:Yeah, You're in that moment now, you just have to accept it.

MR:I first got really into hip-hop in that classic Def Jam era. Except for the Beastie Boys, it was all pretty edgy. Thats something I miss.. everybody seems to be in this shallow disco bubble, like half the world might as well not be going on.



Ok so the Bboys were not groundbreaking in their LTI days. They weren't very different from RUN DMC , but they did bring their culture to the table, which had never been heard in rap music. Isn't that a little edgy? I think "Girls" and "Brass Monkey" were pretty wacky and edgy for their time as well.

[b i o n i c]

isnt mark ronson a friend of mike d?

that might be a misinterpretation

[dave790]

I wasn't there, but I think he just means that the Beasties were there for the party, big style ha.

[Brother McDuff]

very interesting statement. i definitely don't think its a dis or out of negativity though.

[Laver1969]

I disagree with that statement. I believe LTI was a groundbreaking album. It may not sound like it in today's world...you had to be there.

It crossed over racial lines and rap/rock lines. It sounded like nothing at the time.

[alikat]

It does strike me as a weird statement coming from Ronson -- sounds almost like "edgy" is a euphamism here like it is in real estate. Certainly LTI contained the same Rick Rubin stamp and lyrical themes (see "Radio," for instance) as other early Def Jam artists.

But giving him the benefit of the doubt, he probably just means that at the time the Beastie Boys were more of a joke, more of a fluffy parody that no one really considered credible. At the time, even though the album was ground-breaking, the band appealed mostly to the very frat boys they were mocking and to mostly white 12 year olds like me. The fact that, once dropped from Def Jam, they would pull a Shadrach, go to LA and record the greatest hip hop album of all time was not yet known to man. Once that happened we all dusted off our LTI cassettes in amazement, but only then.

Anyway I don't think he's dissing the Beastie Boys.

[JohnnyChavello]

At the time, even though the album was ground-breaking, the band appealed mostly to the very frat boys they were mocking and to mostly white 12 year olds like me.

I will continue to disagree with this analysis although it has been sort of accepted as conventional wisdom at this point. First of all, Licensed to Ill was big within the urban (read: young and black) community at the time. Second, Fight for Your Right may have been a parody of some hair metal/Motley Crue stuff that was getting played on MTV and the radio, but the album itself isn't a parody. Their music, energy, and whatever else was probably more or less just the result of youthful exuberance and not some clever conscious attempt to mock middle-class values by giving some unidentified frat boys another reason to act like assholes. I don't know what this guy meant in the article, but if he meant that the popular exposure the Beastie Boys garnered made them less "edgy" because everyone and their mother was listening to their records, then I can't necessarily disagree with that; same is true to a point with Run DMC (not, however, a Def Jam act). Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and others were not household names and so listening to them meant listening to something you couldn't discuss at the water cooler. But, at the time, the Beastie Boys were popular with far more than 12 year old white kids and frat boys.

[djdjdj]

What do you expect from a guy who didn't even finish college?

[Documad]

The Beasties weren't remotely edgy during the LTI era. They were silly and they were all over MTV. They were also super popular.

I doubt that you can be super popular and edgy at the same time.

[pm0ney]

They were also the only artists in history to get kicked off of American Bandstand, and thrown out of a country. That's pretty fuckin edgy if you ask me.

Mark Ronson wouldn't know edgy if it smacked him in the face. His parents are like multi-millionaires or some shit like that.

[Ord Lees]

Comin' in late, sorry bout that...

I take that to mean "The first rap album to go to number 1 on the charts" and how it was pouring out of walkman headphones, car stereos and MTV for the 6 months following it's release - meaning that it sold about 7 million copies that year, and therefore was not hard to find, hear, or get into. I do NOT take what he's saying to mean the music wasn't good. Rather, by sheer popularity, it became the standard at the time and many people's gateway into hip-hop for the next year or two.

From what I've seen, Mark Ronson is on great terms with the Beastie Boys and has a lot of respect for them.

[mcamuto]

The word 'edgy' is very broad depending on who you ask but to many the beasties were not very edgy. They were more revolutionary (at least LTI was a revolutionary album) and extrodinary at the time but does not mean they were edgy, depending on who's definition you go by. LTI brought hip hop to the white masses and really took hip hop in a new direction which was new and mind blowing but their subject matter was far from edgy. Sniffing glue and eating hot dogs with no mustard are not edgy but really are goofy. Having a penis on stage could be considered edgy but a lot of of people really thought of them as a great party band with fight for your right being like a high school anthem. Other hip hop bands like PE or NWA would be lot more edgier to many, even the first one of two LL albums can be edgier, since they did not have the goofy lyrics. You could say that the early RR produced albums were 'cutting edge' but not really edgy.

[KENNY GUIDO]

The Beasties weren't remotely edgy during the LTI era. They were silly and they were all over MTV. They were also super popular.

I doubt that you can be super popular and edgy at the same time.

Aren't edgy? I guess you never heard about the women that complained the songs being pro female violence. In fact, the whole album was edgy due to its "violent content" which eventually got them a "parental advisory" warning. Let's not forget about thier really "edgy" canceled album title "dont be a faggot".

Howard Stern is super popular and edgy.