Pop Rap

LL Cool J (b. James Todd Smith, 1969) received considerable praise after pioneering the use of recognizable pop song structures in his rap music ^[1]. His song 'I Need a beat' (released in 1984) became the first successful release by the seminal New York hip hop record label Def Jam. The young LL Cool J dropped out of high school to record the debut album Radio (released in 1985). The singles 'I Can't Live Without My Radio' and 'Rock the Bells' helped the album to reach platinum record status in 1986. The following year, his second album Bigger and Deffer reached #3 partly due to the ballad 'I Need Love' which became one of the first pop-rap crossover hits ^[2]. His visual image as a 'gold-chained, bare-chested heartthrob' ^[3] perfectly suited the LL Cool J acronym ('Ladies Love Cool James').

LL Cool J's skill for making hip-hop accessible to the pop market aided his chart success career, but left him open to attack by hip hop purists, who have often accused him of being a sellout'. His 1989 Walking with a Panther was perceived as one of these pop sellouts efforts and he was booed in concert ^[4]. In 1990 LL Cool J answered his critics with Mama Said Knock You Out (widely accepted as his strongest release ^[5] ) which became established as both pop and rap superstar.

The Beastie Boys, originally a hardcore punk band, formed in New York in 1981. The members all came from white, wealthy, middle-class Jewish families and treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground ^[6], although at the time they were seen by some hip hop purists as being 'impostors' involved in 'cultural pirating' ^[7] of hip hop.

In 1985 Rick Rubin (Def Jam Records) signed the Beastie Boys, and the band went on to record a hit single (''She's on It') which sampled AC/DC's 'Back in Black' and was also used on the soundtrack of the film Krush Groove. In the same year the BeastieBoys opened for both Madonna and Run DMC on tour. These tour's raised the band's profile, but they were generally poorly received because of their use of profanity and their immature stage antics ^[8] .

Their debut album License to Ill was released in 1986, and became the fastest-selling debut in Columbia Records' history and the first rap album to reach # 1 in the US charts. The album immediately became an 'anthem to pseudo rebellious youth everywhere' ^[9], with such tracks as 'Fight for Your Right to Party', 'No sleep till Brooklyn' and 'Girls'. The latter track, along with the groups live performance antics (which featured female audience members dancing in go-go cages, and a giant inflatable penis) attracted the attention of feminist groups who joined with the newly formed Parents Music Research Center (PMRC) ^[10] in attempting to get their records banned, or least restricted: 'Throughout their 1987 tour, they were plagued with arrests and lawsuits, and were accused of inciting crime' ^[11].The band (at this time also involved in a dispute with their record company over royalty payments) started to fall apart under the weight of the bad publicity.

After several solo projects the Beastie Boys signed with Capitol Records in California. Working alongside the production team of The Dust Brothers, they released their second album, Paul's Boutique. - described by Larkin as 'one of the genre's most overlooked pieces, a complex reflection of pop culture which is infinitely subtler than their debut' ^[12] and by Rolling Stone as a 'layered, almost psychedelic barrage of obscure retro samples and lyrics riddled with hip hop and pop culture in-jokes'. Paul's Boutique's reputation spread via word of mouth, and became enormously influential, It won the Beasties tremendous underground respect, and helped to launched the career of the Dust Brothers ^[13].

Paul's Boutique, although now critically acclaimed, at the time sold under a million copies and generated only one Top Forty hit ('Hey Ladies'). This was in part due to the change of style in rap music, as bands such as Public Enemy popularised stronger lyrical and social commentary.