[balohna]

Hi, this is my first time here in a long time.

A few recent Google searches on the bboys brought me back to threads on this forum, reminding me I had an account and posted a lot around the TT5B/Mix Up days (and I was on the old forum in pre-TT5B days where we all speculated wildly during years of silence). I was a teen and probably said a bunch of dumb shit. I'm in my 30s now.

I just recently got around to finishing Beastie Boys Book. Not sure what took me so long. I think I sort of moved on from my "fandom" of the band after Yauch died, even though I still loved them. I also wasn't a huge fan of HSCP2, though I'm listening to it again and it's growing on me. The release of Beastie Boys Story made me decide to finish the book first, so I did that. Since then I've been going kind of nuts watching YouTube videos and even busting out some DVDs (Anthology and AIFST) and listening to the commentary tracks.

Anyway, something kind of sad hit me when reading BBB and relistening to HSCP2. Adam H. talks in the book about how Yauch had randomly just reworked Too Many Rappers for the album, even though the original had already been released as a single. I decided to listen to that original version again (via the video, which I might not have actually ever seen before this week). There's a clear lyrical difference between the single and the album versions, mainly MCA's lyrics about never dying. It makes me think part of his motivation for reworking the track might have been removing those lyrics when he understood the severity of his situation.

I'm probably not the first to make this observation, but it hit me pretty hard and I wanted to put some thoughts down somewhere.