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Originally Posted by BeesTea
I just reread the BBB bible so some of their childhood narrative is still fresh in my mind. Although MD grew up in a relatively affluent household, it seems as if the the 2 Adams came from more middle-class backgrounds. While I am sure Israel Horowitz was comfortable as a relatively well-known playwright, I think I had read that Adam had lived with his mother and even used her maiden name as his surname suggesting to me that maybe dad wasn’t involved with his kids post-divorce (that definitely could be my personal bias).
AY’s parents were a social worker and architect. Again, these are professions that provide a secure but hardly lavish lifestyle.
I have also read that some of their friends were very good at inking fake handstamps so they could get into venues. I always assumed it was because of an minimum age issue but maybe it was also to avoid cover charges.
I think what DID help the 3 is they each had at least one parent who was in an artistic field. Perhaps their parents were more accepting of following one’s dreams vs going to college at 17 and 4 years later be ready to embark on a lucrative, safe career.
In terms of Hester and her husband: venturing into modern art in the 1950s was fortuitous timing. The Space Race and Cold War were funding technology developments even to labor-saving devices for one’s home. The Beat Generation was developing. I think a lot of the culture at that time carried over into style choices.
Then she switched her specialty to the very different genre of Old Masters. It could have been because she was now a widow and the modern style was always more of her husband’s thing than her true preference. Her switch occurred when Reagan was in office and the I-bankers were doing very well until 10/87.
All of this is conjecture on my part so it’s just my two cents.
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Good points. Also remember that Adrock's mother was renting out a room (presumably to make ends meet).
I think the fact that Mike's family is/was well-to-do but but he's still running wild in the streets during his highschool years is pretty cool. It may be that his folks had a lot of nice art but did not have tons and tons of expendable cash at the time. It may be that they were rich, but
he wasn't! It doesn't seem like his parents were giving him tons of money. Look where he was living in the LTI era, a rat infested apartment.
It also doesn't appear that their money (or lack thereof) had a huge direct impact on their success in the music biz. They had the instinct/luck to gravitate towards Rick Reuben. Had that not happened they probably wouldn't have made it very far in hip hop despite their raw talent.