On May 4th, 2012 Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys lost his battle to cancer, at the age of 47 years old. He was more than just a founding member of one of the most influential groups in hip hop history. Yauch was also a political activist, a devout Buddhist and was heavily involved in the Tibetan independence movement, organizing a series of Tibetan Freedom Concerts during the late 90s-early 2000s.
Early on the Beastie Boys were known more for their juvenile frat rap than politically conscious lyrics. You could argue that their breakthrough hit “Fight For Your Right To Party” off of their 1986 debut studio album Licensed to Ill is a protest tune in the sense that it is anti-conformity and anti-authority, but there really isn’t any deep social statement happening. Admittedly much of their content on their debut is misogynistic and homophobic. Yauch and the rest of the Beastie Boys matured, and the sentiments of their early material no longer reflected who they were as people. For example, on their 1994 hit “Sure Shot”, Yauch acknowledged his past indiscretions with the poignant line “I want to say a little something that’s long overdue/ The disrespect to women has got to be through/ To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends/ I want to offer my love and respect to the end.” The band also changed some of the lyrics of their early hits when performing live.
On later albums they started to more frequently address social issues in their lyrics. Here is a sample of 5 protest songs by the Beastie Boys.
Sabotage
This tune from their 1994 album, Ill Communication saw the band returning to their early hardcore roots. Back in high school I didn’t associate this song with any political statement, I just knew it rocked. Also, watching the gloriously campy music video, not entirely sure they intended to make a deeper social statement, but the lyrics do resonate in today’s political climate. Lines such as “I’m-a set it straight, this Watergate”, “You’ll shut me down with a push of your button” and “Scheming on a thing, that’s a mirage” all well articulates government efforts to cover up corruption, silence dissenting voices and fabricate new realities.
Song For The Man
This tune from their 1998 album Hello Nasty, highlights the eclecticism of the band. Musically the trio deviates from hip hop and punk and explore a cool jazzy retro spaced out vibe. Lyrically, it is a scathing indictment of male sexist attitudes: “What makes you feel and why you gotta be?/Like you got the right to look her up and down/What makes this world so sick and evil?” The song holds up in light of the #TimesUp movement and it highlights the important role that men can play as allies by calling out their fellow-men for sexism and discrimination.
In a World Gone Mad
This 2003 protest song concerning the Iraq War and then US President George W. Bush was offered as a free download on several different websites. Mike D of the Beastie Boys made the following statement about the tune and protest songs in general: “There’s definitely been a concept put out that to speak up is potentially unpatriotic, [but] voicing one’s opinion is generally democratic and American, and that’s one of the things that compelled me to speak up.”
Right Right Now Now
This tune is from their 2004 album, To the 5 Boroughs. The album has a whole is the group’s most socially conscious. The song is a call to unity and it addresses several social ills including gun violence (“Columbine bowling, childhood stolen/We need a bit more gun controlling”), America’s foreign policy (“The U.S. attacking other nations”) and racism (“I went to get a loan and they asked my race/ I wrote down human inside the space”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fos5IYfMzEg
It Takes Time to Build
This is another hard-hitting political tune from To the 5 Boroughs. The song is a strong rebuke of Bush and the controversial election result (“We’ve got a president we didn’t elect”). It also heavily discusses environmental issues and how unchecked commercial greed contributes to irreparable damage to the planet. Trump could easily be replaced for Bush and the lyrics equally apply to the efforts of the Trump’s administration to remove environmental protections for the sake of profits.