Within the early days of Def Jam, there have been solely a handful of teams managed by then founder and proprietor Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys had been a kind of preliminary Def Jam teams. One of many first solo artists on the label, an adolescent on the time who referred to as himself LL Cool J, was truly scouted by the Beastie Boys’ Advert Rock, who tells the story in an unique interview of how he introduced James Todd Smith to Rick Rubin in 1984.
Advert Rock, whose actual identify is Adam Horovitz, claims that he made the beat for LL’s 1985 seminal hit “I Want A Beat” on an 808 drum machine that he’d simply bought along with his final $250. Rock stated he was caught between selecting a guitar or the drum machine, however the burgeoning Hip Hop legend selected the latter, which was instrumental within the spawning of the manufacturing of the Beastie Boys’ debut album License To Sick in 1986.