Spanning a 30-year career, the Beastie Boys have come up from skateboarding punks to music legends, as the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame will induct the Brooklyn rappers into their 2012 class, according to the Daily News.
The group debuted their first album, Licensed to Ill in 1986, after dabbling as a hardcore punk band for a few years prior. They came up playing clubs in the Lower East Side, although interestingly, the trio never played Brooklyn until they performed in Williamsburg in 2007.
“When we came up none of the clubs were really in Brooklyn,” Mike D told Gothamist before that show.
Still, their music has always been littered with shout-outs and love letters to Kings County, most obviously in “No Sleep ‘til Brooklyn” and “Hello Brooklyn.”
“At lunch I'd go to Blimpies down on Montague Street/And hit the Fulton Street Mall for the sneakers on my feet,” rapped Adam “MCA” Yauch on their 2004 song “An Open Letter to NYC.”
