One Song - Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" w/ Nick Kroll

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Listen all y’all, it’s “Sabotage” this week on One Song. To help break down this 1994 Beastie Boys classic, Diallo and LUXXURY are joined by the incredibly talented actor, comedian, writer, and producer Nick Kroll. On this episode, they discuss the impact of the iconic (and hilarious) music video directed by Spike Jonze, unpack why not all white rappers are built the same, and learn how Beastie Boys producer/engineer Mario Caldato Jr. served as inspiration for the lyrics. Plus, Nick tells the guys about the time he performed a cabaret version of “Sabotage.” One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=f5e3eb90a58549a0 This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ONESONG and get on your way to being your best self. Songs Discussed: "Sabotage" - Beastie Boys "Cooky Puss" - Beastie Boys "Fight For Your Right" - Beastie Boys "Paul Revere" - Beastie Boys "Remote Control" - Beastie Boys "So What'Cha Want" - Beastie Boys "When the Levee Breaks" - Led Zeppelin "Rhymin & Stealin" - Beastie Boys "The Big Beat" - Billy Squier "Sweet Emotion" - Aerosmith "Killing in the Name" - Rage Against the Machine "LA Deli" - Sloppy Secondz "Get It Together" - Beastie Boys ft. Q-Tip "Intergalactic" - Beastie Boys "Tezeta" - Mulatu Astatke "A Day In The Life" - The Beatles "Sex Machine" - James Brown "Family Affair" - Sly & The Family Stone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luxury, today's song is an iconic 90s hit. It's classic rock instrumentation, punk energy, and rap song maybe shouted vocals, combined to make a song that was at once an outlier for the band, while at the same time bringing together many of its influences, becoming its biggest single. With a wildly creative music video that further accentuates the track's energy improves the visionary output of this once-in-a-generation group. 30 years later, we are here to talk about what makes this song the definitive fusion of doing hip hop and rock the quote right way.

Listen all of y'all, it's one song, and that song is sabotaged by the Beastie Boys. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo-Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ songwriter, and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation. And this is one song.

The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and if you want to, watch one song. Please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode.

And while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right. So today, to help us break down sabotage, we brought in a very special guest. That's right. He's a three-time-nominated actor,

four times going to be the charm buddy, comedian, writer, and producer. And the creator of the widely celebrated comedy series, Kroll Show, and Big Bouts. That's right. With numerous scenes-stealing appearances across TV and film and series,

such as the League, Parks and Rec, Portlandia, the Sing franchise. Please welcome the multifaceted the comedic force of Nick Kroll. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Thanks for being on our show, Nick Kroll. This is so big. Fourth time will not be a chart,

but I really appreciate you saying that. I really appreciate it. As somebody who has on his bio Emmy nominated, there's no shame in this game. Yeah. Yeah. Or it's filled with constant shame. All kinds of agonizing shame.

Yes. I'm going for the daytime Emmy now. Oh, honestly, less competition? Less competition and better food at the ceremony. Oh, you paid to all the ceremony. I've never been to the day. That's the wine. It's on my vision board.

You're going for the EGOT. The EGAROMONES. Yeah, like a midday glass of warm white wine. Nick, thank you for coming on the show. We've known each other for a minute. I've seen you maybe three times over the past 35 years. Yes. But I did meet you about 30-ish years ago.

That's crazy. Just for the listeners out there, I went to college with Nick's older brother. There was a photograph somewhere in my library of a young Nick Kroll. And that's it. And then 30 years later, I saw you at, home state. I also do know you as the guy who whispers, In Interpolation. Thank you very much for knowing this.

I appreciate this. Trust me. I know. It's like saying dynamite to Jimmy Walker. You don't just get that for free. I'm a man with 80 catchphrases to a guy with one catchphrase. I appreciate the nod. Yeah, and you got to pay me for each one. So, Nick, before we get this going, what did the Beastie Boys mean to you? I imagine

they mean something to you. Yeah. Well, as a Jewish kid growing up in the New York, tri-state area in the 80s and 90s, there weren't a lot of aspirational music role models. Although, yeah. So I think that, ironically, the Beastie Boys, like, obviously in the 80s, the, you know, like, you know, fight for your right to party. All those songs were like big, especially like, I was a little boy. And that song still is like, it's a little boy's song, right?

You know what I mean? Buy and four little boys. Yeah. Also, like, you know, sort of misogynist anthem. But like, but like, and obviously. But they were teenagers. They were teenagers. They were literally teenagers.

Exactly. If you feel it. And it's like, and it's an, but so anyway, that, those, that moment for them was so fun when I was like a kid. And then as I got into like middle school and high school, they obviously kept making all this amazing music. And ironically, the reason we know each other is because you went to college my brother. My brother, a huge influence for me across all culture and specifically music because I grew up not really loving and listening to music as a little kid. I was listening to, like, WFA and sports radio. I was, like, I was, like, listening to sports radio when I was a kid.

And then my brother started sending me CDs and albums early on. Like, he's in college and he's sending him to back home. And he's buying me, like, James Brown. Okay. He's buying me, Sly in the Family Stone. He is buying me Paul's Boutique. Yeah, yes, yes. And so Paul's Boutique, that's right as he's introduced to me to, like, that music,

and then also like, you know, Miles and Mingus and all the jazz stuff. And so I started to like fall in love with that version of music as my friends as well. And then the Beastie Boys, this like voice of what I remember being like a kid and like this like rap, rock thing. Especially like, you know, an hyperactive like Jewish kid. Right. And then. Add rock in particular with that high pitch voice. Yeah.

And then, but then all of a sudden it merges with like this really beautiful musicianship that is so deep. grounded in all this music that my brother had introduced me to, and I fell in love with it. I love that story because there's the older brother phenomenon. I don't have that. I'm an only child. And I love the idea of like getting something that it has another layer of meaning because it came from your brother. Yeah. The music was enough on itself, but the fact that your older brother, you probably looked up to to some degree, liked it, also probably meant something to you. Absolutely. So I, but then by the time sabotage hits, I'm kind of now beginning to explore and live in my own musical space, and that music video comes out. Yes, which we're talking about.

And that's what's so, like, that's what becomes this whole other level to this. What's interesting is that the BC boys have such an interesting backstory, because they do start as a punk group. Not everybody knows that. Most people know them for the rap component, and in this case for this sort of hard rock thing. But in the middle, they're going to bad brain shows and misfits

is how they all met. They were punk rock kids in the Lower East Side in the early 80s. We've talked about it many times on the show, this is a moment early 80s lower, New York City, Manhattan, is the time where there's this. cross-pollination of music genres. So there's hip-hop, nascent hip-hop is happening. There's a lot of, like, very young genres in there.

Very young genres. You've got punk. You've got disco. You've got rap. And they're all cross-pollinated. They're all listening to each other. All sort of like on the downtown side of Manhattan. All in places like... I would say that at Borese side had a...

You know... Robert Chambers at Dorian's was... Robert Chambers. Gen Z, look it up. Robert Chambers. That's a fun wiki dive. we talk about the downtown scene. My first job in Hollywood was an OG media executive named Brett King. And Brett was on that scene.

He was friends with John Michelle Basquiat and Ram L. Z. And he knew Nick Cooper, who was the manager for the Beastie Boys at the time that they're playing this show. And what's crazy to me is that Nick Cooper was 16, the Beastie Boys were 15. Like, as 15-year-olds, they were like, we probably get somebody older than us to manage. Let's get that 16-year-old who seems to know what he's doing. Let's watch a clip of the Beastie Boys making their TV debut as a hardcore band on the Scott and Gary show. Awesome. And that is the Beastie Boys we know and love playing instruments.

But you know, they're children. I mean, like, for those who we watch on YouTube, we just saw children. If I saw those guys at Taco Bell at 1230, I'd be like, get to class. Like, that's insane. But you mentioned, like, the New York factor. Is there something kind of relatable that you recognize watching this footage or what you know about the scene at the time. Well, I think like, again, a kid growing up in Westchester, like, that really wasn't like this whole thing of like cool New York punk soho. Like I was not being

exposed to that at all. My brother probably was and was going in like it wasn't like I wasn't aware of it until I got to high school. But it's really like my way into the Beastie Boys really was much more through their like funk roots and stuff and hip hop roots than it was on the punk of it. So it's the James Brown you were also listening to that kind of connected. Yeah, that really became. And so specifically that Paul's Boutique album is so rich in that space. Can we talk about Paul's Boutique? Because it is one of my favorite. And we will just for the one song nation, we will definitely be doing another Beastie Boys episode. And it will definitely be Paul's Boutique centric. Because it's in my top three records of all time. It's so and it's and it's crazy.

I think they make that record in LA. Yes. They come out here. Right. So like, but I, but I, so my way And so then sabotage, then it does highlight there sort of that punk rock vibe to it, that energy that was not something that I had naturally come to as a young, like, fan of music. But you, I mean, you guys played the intro and we're all sitting in here. You can just feel everybody starting to get so fucking pumped. Right. So it hit me in this other way that was sort of new to me at that time. Right.

But going back to the beginning of the Beastie Boy story, you know, to hear people who were there. and I'm going to go back to my friend, Brett King for a second. He says that, you know, Yalk and Horowitz, they were part of a crew of 15 and 16-year-olds who were really just listening to this hardcore music and trying to make hardcore music. And then he says it was one summer around 83 when they all stopped listening.

They'd all been into like reggae and hardcore. And then all of a sudden out of Horowitz's boombox, they start blasting rap and reggae. And it was like one summer where they decided, you know what, we're going to become a rap group. And that brings us to Cookie Puss, which is a song that has a huge, huge effect on not just this group, but also the trajectory of hip hop throughout the 80s. Do you know the origin of Cookie Puss? I mean, I know Cookie Puss as a, again, Tri-State area, Carvel.

Time, Tom Carvel. So, and I remember Cookie Puss very specifically, Cookie, it was like a real thing that it was like a very funny cake. It's the funniest cake. Was it a funny character? Was it like a character? It was sort of a character, but didn't move. It's just like, it's one of the funniest cakes of all time. I mean, in the pantheon of funny cakes, it's probably number one.

It's top. It's the top cake, right. We actually have a- Tom Cruise sends cakes to everybody every year for Christmas, and it's like a coconut cake. Not as funny, a famous cake. I would always take a cookie-puss Carvel cake over a Tom Cruise coconut cake. Wow.

That's how important this cake is. Well, we have a clip of the Carvel ad that gave us the title of this song. Play it. I'm a Corvile celestial person from out of state. My real name is Cookie Puss. But my friends call me CP. I'm a Carvel ice cream cake. And I'm a fresh dairy at participating Carvel ice cream stores.

It's always confusing when the character is the food. Like you're going to eat the thing that it's advertising. Oh, yeah. Elpoa, local. Why is he so into chicken? It's absolutely insane chicken. Yeah. Cannibalism is.

There's cookie posts. And then you guys didn't have Fiji the way. Whale is back. That's a whale of a cake for Whale of a Dan. It's your participating Carvel ice cream store. Yep. And this year, your Carvel dealer makes them loaded with fudge. They had to get another one that was Fudgy the Whale.

Fudgy the Whale, I think, made it to Atlanta. I remember Fudgy the Whale. I remember that cake. Yes. We did not have cookie puts. By the way, if now looking back, might have been the same physical shape just turned, like, turn horizontal. Turn horizontal.

As always, Tom Carvel pulling the wool over our, eyes, the great magician of the ice cream cake industry. An innovator, by the way, early like sending a delivering a cake, I don't know if I'd call a toll-free number to have a cake sent to me through the mail by Tom Carvel in the 80s.

That was high tech at the time, to be fair. Yeah, like, what were they packing it in, like, cold lead? Like, what were they sending these cakes in? Anyway. They just put a bunch of beers around. And they're like, they'll be fine. So that's the inspiration for Cookie Puss. Now, let's hear the song that took this hardcore group

into the world of hip-hop, And fun fact, even though I have downloaded this song, and I'm usually well prepared for episodes of the show, I can say with some great level of truth that I don't know what Cookie Puss sounds like. This is actually pretty much maybe only the second time I've heard it in my entire life. So I'm going to try to react to it in real time. I'm listening to Cookie Puss effectively for the first time. By the way, I don't know it. I've never, I don't know Cookie Puss. True emotions. We've got two cookie Puss versions.

Yeah. It'll be an emotion sandwich for me. Let's see. Okay. Here comes our real-time reactions. Play Cookie Puss. Yo, me. Man, help you.

Yes. What's your name? Hello. Hello, man. You got Cookie Puss's number? He's my supervisor. He'll help you. Yo, man, where's the supervisor at?

I got the number anyway, baby. Wow. So it's, I mean, it's fascinating because it really, what it feels like to me is, like, it feels like what I was like with my friends growing up fucking around. You know what I mean? And they just happen to record it and produce it. Yes. Like the feeling of prank calling,

which I used to do with like my friend, is my friend Andrew Goldberg, who I make Big Mouth with. Like that's what, you know, that's how you connect as friends and sense of humor is like, but they were like recording it. No.

And by 1983 standards, that was good enough that they played this at clubs. We're going to talk about this a lot on the episode. You know, I'm not a fan of comedy music, but I love it when music is funny. And there's this little lane that very few artists have been able to maintain.

I think the Beastie Boys are prime example Where the music is, it's got wit, there are funny lines every now and then, there are funny choices, but they're not being a comedy act. And right out of the gate here, well, this may be a little bit on the left of that, but it was taken seriously as a hip-hop track,

at least in the downtown community, enough that it was played at these hip-hop clubs. And it wasn't, it was definitely a novelty track, but it sets the stage for their career where they're always kind of injecting a little bit of humor. Totally. But never so much that you think of them like a comedy band.

I mean, they're kind of like, they're kind of like a jester's. Yes. The word I'm looking for. Rascals. They are a little rascals. I think that's like, what he's,

what he's saying is definitely true. On this show, we talk a lot about how the marriage of humor and music is so hard to pull off. So delicate. And yet this is like uniquely like a song you can both take seriously as music,

but also seriously as comedy. On the topic, I love this quote that Ad Rock has about incorporating their comedy into the music. So Ad Rock says, quote, when it's a joke, it's a joke, but with the music, I think we're always pretty serious. With a lot of the lyrics or saying things to make each other laugh or to be funny, but then the 808 drumbeat is dead serious to us.

Yeah, I think that's what allowed them to be funny at times in the music, was that in the songs, because the music is just, is there. Right, and I guess we sort of find that to this day with parody with like the lonely island, like if you break down why that stuff is so good, it's obviously funny. Yeah. But they are dead serious with their music production. Absolutely. Yeah, and none of those groups, none of the Lonely Island specifically and a lot of those, but music probably doesn't happen without the Beastie Boys sort of laying the ground.

For sure. Oh, yeah, I can't even imagine Lonely Alley. I'd be like, lazy Sunday and some of that stuff just owes so much to the Beastie Boys. Well, Cookie Puss comes out on Rat Cage Records, which was the name of a record store that also ran a small label. And soon after its release, DJ started playing Cookie Puss in clubs. The band starts playing Studio 54, and they come in front of Rick Rubin, who, signs them to his new label, Jeff Jam, and the rest is hip-hop history. The BC Boys become a full-fledged hip-hop phenomenon.

And again, these are three white Jewish kids from New York who are just being true to themselves. They're personifying what's happening in this cultural moment in downtown New Orleans. All the different styles of music they're bringing together, and they're adding their own sense of wit and style to it. No, they're being authentic to who they are. And I think that's why they were so successful, like, right off the bat. And we will take, you know, a second to take a step back

and rip the Band-Aid off and just say that, like, a lot of their novelty was that they were three white guys rapping. I'm not sure in my all-black elementary school that we quite understood the difference between just, I guess, regular white and Jewish at that moment. But we didn't know, like, oh, these are three white guys rapping. And so they did benefit from the fact that, like, that was kind of like a weird thing at the time. Elvis benefits from it. The first white pioneer into a black music always sort of benefits from that.

But one thing I'll give the Beasties is that they did not change. For whatever reason on Instagram recently, there's a clip of Vanilla Ice dancing in his movie. And it looks so exploitative. You know what I mean? It looks like a guy who's like, oh, I'm going to be rich like Elvis because this is what I'm doing. And I feel like opposed to Mr. Van Winkle, the B.C. boys, third base. Like, there were other white ratrooms. This might be its own

different podcast, but like, maybe we can speak to this briefly as the representative Jews of the room. There is... Finally, we have a chance. I know, I've just been talking so much. Jesus Christ, don't give us a chance to speak and be heard. Nick, do you have thoughts about this whole, like, Jews versus other white people have factor in hip-hop?

And I know this is one song, but really, let's get into one love. As I've said already, like, there is something about seeing someone like you and growing up Jewish, you feel a little different than other, the other, like, white kids. You just feel, I won't say othered in the same way, but there's just something different, especially in the 70s and 80s as they were growing up and before, where just you feel slightly different. And so venturing into an art form now then, also like then taking black influences, but you just feel like, I identify a little with this. I don't feel like everybody else. The Beastie Boys are, for you guys,

Obama was for me. It was like, oh my God, we can do that. We can do this? Totally. Totally. So I think it, I definitely think it had, and I think it speaks to the humor in the music and then also choose of always want to be black. I mean, that's the end of the bottom line. Listen, let's just cut through the bullshit

here and get to it. It's not one song, it's one tribe. Yeah, exactly. One tribe. No, that makes so much sense. And I always say that like, even if they benefited from a certain amount of like, oh, look at these white guys doing it, it, always felt more real than even some of the other, you know, because everyone, no, not all white

rappers are made the same, you know what I mean? Like Eminem came through the Dr. Dre door and it was like, oh, that dude can wrap his ass on. Yeah. You know, like, as opposed to, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but like, you know, he has some issues. Sure. Or let's go back to fucking Vanilla ice. Yeah. Yeah. Who's like, Vanilla Ice is the one who's performing at Trump's inauguration. You know what I mean? Like, that's not a surprise. Same guy that he was back then. Yeah. Yeah. Becces are like hardcore Buddhists. But a big part... You know what I mean?

It all adds up. But maybe to add to this, too, let's not forget part of their story is this low-re-side phenomenon. They're not just going to bad-brain shows. They are hanging out with the bad brains. In fact, one of the stories of their name, the origin of their name,

according to the bad brains, one of my favorite bands, we talk about them every 12th episode, another bad-brains reference. But Daryl Jennifer, a bass player for bad brains, has a story where he says, listen, I think he thinks the origin of the name,

Beastie Boys, comes from them all hanging out on the stoop in the East Village. near Rackage Records. And one thing that they would be doing there would be selling weed, smoking weed, with the Beastie Boys. Like, this was their crew. And he says that if cops would come,

they would all shout out Beastie. That was their code word. So his theory is that the origin of Beastie Boys comes from the Bad Brains, giving it to them as a name. So they're legitimately part of this circle of, I mean, in Bad Brains, you want to talk about another influence,

another band that's merging hardcore and reggae. So they're obviously influenced by the idea of multiple genres can exist in a single band. So maybe that's part of where the authenticity. The feeling of authenticity might come from. They were actually hanging out and they were inside New York.

They were in the mix. Well, the B.C. Boys are blowing up at this time. They're going on the talk shows. One of my favorites is when they go on the Joan Rivers talk show and she messes up the title of their album. She says, their album is called License to Kill and the audience corrects her. Let's just play a clip.

His album is called License to Kill and it went platinum after only eight weeks. License to kill, right? That's ill, John. I'm telling you, I've got my stupid contacts in. Hold on. Okay, sorry about this. Their album is called Licensed to Ill.

That's a stupid name for animal. And here's another clip of an early BC Boys performance of Fight for Your Right on American Bandstand, same year in 1987. You got a fight for your right. And on the non-TV friendly of this, they've got, like, on stage, they're performing with a giant blow-up, like, penis. They all look back on the same. time, all the Visi boys look back on this era and very apologetically about some of the misogyny, some of the silliness, some of the puerile humor. But they're also funny and they're also touring with Run DMC too. They're having a blast. And by the way, I was talking to my friend

Jason about this, but if you take them at their word, apparently to party is to look at porno mags and smoke cigarettes. Like, this is a great party. Yeah. This is a great party. But it really, in that way, you watch them, you're like, oh, these are just. friends having a blast and they're on national television kind of like not very core, clearly not choreograph. They're flopping around. Flopping around, not taking it

very seriously. And that must have you know, as I was a little too young so at this point, but just catching on to be like this, how refreshing to not feel like sort of super curated, organized, super cool music or presentation. Look, there's Michael Jackson's

performance at Motown 25. and then there's this. Chaos. Yeah. And let's not forget that like there's big crunchy guitars in that too. So they were from day one mixing the hip-hop beats.

The 808s were already being mixed with the big power chords, right? That's what's interesting about Fight for your rights specifically is that in a weird way, sabotage sounds more like that room than some of the B.C. Boy songs that came in between

that song and Sabotinitling. And they're for sure. They're playing with all that rock and hip-hop mixing. Well, we can't talk about irony and music and not talk about Beastie Boy videos. From Fight to Your Right to Party into the Paul's Boutique era of, hey, ladies and shake your rump,

they have an insane run on some of these sort of thin line between comedy not comedy videos, right? But if you come close to the video for our song today, Sabotage, directed by Spike Jones. This 70s exploitation video follows the band as undercover cops running around the streets of L.A. Let's play a snippet. Video perfection. Man, I wish everybody listening could be in the studio right now because you would see three very excitable men right now. We're freaking loving it.

Hearing the full song through, it rips so hard from start to finish. It's not a long song, by the way. Yeah, it's perfect. Pretty short. So the video comes out for this song, and again, I don't think I even had MTV. We didn't have cable at that point,

but you'd go to your friend's house. You'd always go to your friends who had so cable to watch MTV. And that video came on. It was just like electrically, funny and watching it again, you're like, oh, they're like, you're there stealing shots all over LA. Like this is, looks like a very unpermanent video. They're just like put on the way, slap it. Let's go to the 6th Street Bridge. And again, it just feels like, yeah, it run down the stairs. Yeah, it run down the stairs, stop and look at the camera. And, you know, it just feels like,

still like friends having a good fucking time that like super low budget, super easy, super mobile. Let's just like run around and grab shit and move on and go to. another spot and grab more shit and we'll cut it together and see what we got. It actually feels very much similar to like where the evolution of where that cookie puss thing was, which like, let's just prank call some stuff and then we'll cut it together and see what we got. I mean, this is like, this is also in the hands of Spike Jones who's like one of us. I mean, that's a whole other level that they find each other.

If I can just jump in there, I mean, like, I feel like tech. I feel like Silicon Valley ruined art because how great were music videos? It was basically the opportunity for like visionary. to direct a three-minute short film with an amazing soundtrack and you might come up with the kind of visuals that made, you know, another part of the entertainment business say, hey, here's more money,

let's see what else you can do. So it makes me truly miss music videos and the place they used to hold in society. And in him, you know, so Spike, you know, like obviously gets to know them at some point and was making skateboarding videos and bike video and like starts to build all this stuff. I don't know exactly when they meet,

but they, make this video and I was like, holy shit. And then by this point, I'm in high school. I, at some point, I don't know when exactly this. When does this come out? 94. Okay. So yeah, this comes out. I'm in high school. And then my senior year, a new kid comes to our school. This kid named Sam, who's super cool. And at some point in the year, a couple of my friends become friendly with him. And they're like,

that dude knows the beastie boys. And it's my buddy Sam whose brother is Spike Jones. So I then, it was like, it was like all of a sudden, again, growing up around a lot and it was like doctors and lawyers, there wasn't much connection to like, this kid's brother made the, you know,

fucking made sabotage. You know, and it was just like, it all made, it started to make it be like, oh, this is possible. Like you could go and be the people who like make that stuff. This is Sam Spiegel? Yes, Sam Spiegel. Is it NASA?

NASA's DJ Squeaky Clean. There you go. Who's made and produced music for tons of artists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's worked with so many people. He's an old old friend. He got and yeah, we met in high school. And so I didn't meet Spike for many, many years, but it was sort of like, oh my God,

this is possible. And that video specifically sabotage for me as someone who like really grew up, like loving music, but really loving comedy. seeing this video was like, holy shit, like you can make a sketch. You can make music be a sketch and be as funny as any sketch you'll ever see. Can't agree more. And Master also was like early for me and like what I think or this early 90s period where it's like all of a sudden being like, oh, the 70s are funny.

Because that had only just happened. It's like the first time since the 70s and the 70s are cool. The 80s were decidedly like disco sucks. Yeah. Bell bottoms are laid. And the BC boys are perfect example of that because they did Paul's Boutique in 89. Yes. And they talk about how they were a little too early by bringing back.

Yes. They did all those great videos with polyester and everything. And it didn't quite hit. People weren't ready for it in 89 yet. But in 94. Because like literally I think back to my brother and you in college and my brother teach me and then started teaching me about fashion of being like, no, it's cool to like go to clothes by the pound and buy the like butterfly collar shirts and like.

Yes. We were definitely doing that. And it was like, and I was like, oh, that's what's cool. And then this video comes out and you're like, oh, they've done it. They've merged like that funny retro 70s thing inside of the genre of like 70s cop TV. Spike nails it, but also it's still silly. They're not taking it so serious. Like the wigs are kind of shitty.

The mustaches are kind of shitty. It's intentionally DIY. It's intentionally a little DIY and shitty. And yet simultaneously mastering. It's super cool. Yes. No, I will say. They're getting the shots that are accurately from those intros.

Like the pointing at the head and then freeze framing, Like, you're not smart. Like, I can totally picture that from Hawaii 50 or something like that. I just want to say real quick that, like, you know, as somebody who has made his career in comedy, this music video, it made sketch comedy look like art. Yes. You know what I mean? Totally. It just made it seem like, oh, we're the new, this is the new punk right here.

Like, we're the guys who throw on wigs that are not perfect. The aviator sunglasses, the stupid ties. And we're going to run around and we're going to be like the new punk aesthetic. And I also, this video, so many things going on. you know, I read a quote somewhere it was like, there would be no Wes Anderson or maybe P.T. Anderson without the sabotaged video. Like so much of

like what we associate with like sort of like late 90s, indie aesthetic is established here. And also can I just say on a personal level makes me miss the old downtown L.A. Because that L.A. that's in that video, like the old 6th Street you know, bridge and all that stuff, all that stuff is gone. But it's such a great video. It's so perfect. Well, listen, so much to unpack here.

We're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, We're going to break down, sabotage and discuss whether it's a rock song or a hip-hop song at its core when we get back. This episode is brought to you today by BetterHelp. I'm not going to lie. Therapy, mental health, it is part of my life. It is my daily, weekly Thursday, 9 o'clock thing that I do. I'm a big believer. It's changed my life.

It's changed my world. So I'm a big fan of this service. I'm a big fan of therapy. Mental health awareness is growing, but there's still progress to be made, including within myself. See, that's the thing. It's an ongoing concern. 26% of Americans who participated in a recent survey say they have avoided seeking mental health support due to fear of judgment.

When people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them. It impacts families, workplaces, and entire communities. We are all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com slash one song to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash one song. Welcome back to One Song. Luxury. Before we jump into the stems, let's talk about how this song was made and how the Beastie Boys internally handled the publishing. This is a 33, 33, 33 song between Mike D, also known as Michael Lewis Diamond, Adam Nathaniel Niauch, or Yalk, which is how he said it, and as MCA and Adam Keith Horowitz at Rock.

Can I just say real quick, I have always had trouble knowing who's who in this group. Yeah, me too. By their voices or by their faces? All of it. So Mike D, he's the high voice, right? But no. No. I always thought it was Mike D was the high voice and it's not.

It's Ad Rock. It's the ad rock. Ad Rock's the highest. MCA is the lowest. And I'm MCA. See what I'm saying? I don't MCA. That's not right.

I do AdRock. That's him. He's the high voice. He's got kind of the nasal thing. Yeah. Mike D is kind of in the middle, but he's closer to the higher one. Yeah. But the nasal stuff, that's AdRock.

Yeah. Isn't it weird? I for years thought it was Mike D. I don't know why. But in my head it was. He seemed like the highest voice guy. Yeah. Part of the reason Mike D looks different. Ad Rock and MCA look kind of similar. And they all often had hats on so they're like the faces. So Mike D's like the most specific looking of the three.

So you're kind of like, is the high voice one, the guy who I always know who it is? I know it sounds crazy because I'm like, but also because they're always like in mustaches and wigs and stuff like. So they were, I think they were playing with different identities. And also anyway, but I agree. They might be like, we were actually three very distinct humor. We don't appreciate. With distinct points of view, skillsets and music. So it hurts a little bit that you would confuse this on this way. But I really, as a genuine massive fans of them, it was hard to know who was who.

Now that we've talked about the splits, how did this song get made? All right. Well, the song begins life in New York City. As we've set up, this is a song where the Beastie Boys are all playing instruments. In fact, there are no samples on this song or are there. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. There might be a sample on this. We might need your help identifying it, in fact.

But in Tin Pan Alley, which was the name of the studio, not the place, but actual Tin Pan Alley Studios, they get together, they jam. This record is made by Mike D getting on the drums, ad rock getting on guitar, and MCA getting on bass with money marks sometimes on keyboards and just jamming it out. And they come up with lots of ideas, ideas, ideas are generated. Some of them turn into songs more quickly than others. This one takes a long time. In fact, it is the last one to be finished because they just couldn't feel. figure out what to do with his instrumental. But one thing that they knew was special about the song is when they played it. There was this guy called Chris something. They don't remember his

name. They all tell this story. As Ad Rock says, he was quote indifferent about the music we were making. He was just at his job. But when they played this, he went nuts for the track. He's like, yo, that is the song. So for the longest time, this instrumental was called Chris Rock. Just because this guy, Chris got a lot. And I never did it was a comedian. It was just, Chris liked a rock song. Oh, it was not Chris Rock. Some dude called Chris. Because I was like, what was Chris Rock doing at the He's been like, this, not that good.

This is not good. This is great. I really like the song. Which also brings us to our unsung hero of the episode. BC Boys fans know the name

if they don't know the guy. This is Mario C. who can't front on that. I never know what he said there. Wow. That's just here the big. You can't front on that.

That's that dude. His name is Mario Caldado, Jr. A little bit about him because he's our unsung hero of this episode. He started, well, he started back in Brazil and came to America, but we're fast forwarding to his career with the Beastie Boys begins with delicious vinyl. He's an engineer.

He works with Matt Dyke and Michael Ross. They make those tone loke and young MC records. And then he works with the Dust Brothers on Paul's Boutique. And he's off to the races working with the Bacy Boys for that record and the next three, including this one, which he engineered and co-produced. Paul's Boutique, check your head, no communication all the way to Hello Nasty. They've recorded all this music in New York and they moved to L.A. to G. Sun Studio. which is over there on Glendale Boulevard, actually. Oh, wow.

So near where they shot a lot of the video. Exactly. I noticed that, the top of the bridge over Glendale Boulevard. Yeah, totally. It's right on their way to work. In 1990, they bought this recording studio in rehearsal space. Money Mark, who also plays into this song, remodels it. He's like a carpenter as well as being a keyboard player.

And that's where they record, check your head, ill communication. And it's where they bring the tapes of all their jams from New York to try and finish what would become ill communication. So Money Mark is like their Billy Preston. in this case. A little bit. It comes in to play the keys and bring a little extra heat to it.

That's a great, and I would agree with that. Yes, absolutely. But you know what else? I'm also realizing is that you just brought up that part of town. That part of town is buzzing in the mid-90s because that's where Beck is recording his albums at this time.

I think you're right about a far side is also done in that area. Everybody's in that weird sort of like Silver Lake at Water Village scene at the time. Yeah. And just like all these Armenians so deeply confused about what's happening. To their community. Yeah. So Mario Caldato,

Mario C. helps them finish the record. So they have all these ideas. MCA was calling it like a live mixtape because they would just have dozens and dozens of things they would piece together. What if we put this intro with this chorus, with these lyrics?

And Mario C is the one with charts and graphs on the board like crazy Charlie Kelly style and helping them decide how to finish this record, which left of their own devices might have taken more time, more months. And two weeks before the album is finished, this track has no lyrics. They were considering putting it out as an instrumental.

and Horowitz has an idea. Quote, there was one track left, Chris Rock, as we've all known, it was called. It had to be dealt with. I decided it would be funny to write a song about how Mario was holding us all down,

how he was trying to mess it all up, sabotaging our great works of art. So he goes to Mario's house. He records his vocal. Holy smokes. And that's how they complete the song. That puts the lyrics in it's such a different place. I know.

And then as I hear it, I'm like, how funny. But it's also like so funny to be like, clearly the guy keeping it all together and helping them form it. They're making it like a, you know, fantastical enemy of him. They just needed a point of view. And it is funny to be like, oh, the guy's clearly helping us shape this. Like, oh, it would be funny if we were fucking mad at him.

I can't stand it. I know you planned it. Yeah. That's so funny. It's really funny with that line. Well, why don't we start with the drum stems? We've already taught about how important the drums are on this song. Let's start with Michael Diamond doing his double hits as he calls them at the top.

And then I'll start to bring it. some other stuff. Here we go. And then he plays this beat. Oh, nice. A little syncopation there. A little stutter step. Yeah.

A lot of sycapacea. He's really doing a lot of like tricky, tricky syncopation in there. It's not a loop. No. The snare's not always what you think it's going to be in the grand tradition of beastie. It's like there's some big rock drums, basically. Big reverby snare hits. It's big.

It's rock. And it just reminds me that sometimes we forget this isn't a hip hop song, but a lot of hip hop has big rock drums in it. The Zepplin, break from when the levy breaks, that opening drum hit isn't a lot of hip hop, right? We have Mountain. We have drum breaks for little feet. Billy Squires the big beat. Right. So it's interesting to kind of connect the dots here. But then as you said, there's that like weird like syncopation that feels to me like much more like what I think of like 70s. I was just saying,

that's the James Brown. Yeah. That's what it feels like. 100% agree. Well, let's move on to the bass. And there's a quick story about that. In fact, the song begins with that as Mike D says, one day, Yowk starts playing this incredible bass line on his vintage Fender Jazz. I immediately asked him, what song is that from? Because it sounded so good, he assumed it was from another song. I assumed it must be somebody else's. Turned out it wasn't. He had just come up with it.

So he sat down, played that da-da-d-d-dun-dum, and they kept on going from there. So let's listen to what Mike D would have heard and been inspired by on that magical day in 1994. I'll bring in some drums. And he's just doing that the whole time. Yeah. But it does sound like... It sounds like a classic. It sounds like a classic. It's a huge wall of distortion on a bass.

He's playing two notes. He's playing the seventh and the root. And he's just kind of like giving it a little syncopation when he throws in that doing... A little clave almost, like a three-two clave. And that's the entire song is the one-note. This is a one-note song. This song is A-flat.

Wow. The entirety of the song is A-flat. What's crazy is if you hadn't told me that was the bass, I wouldn't assume that was the bass. I would assume that's like a guitar. Because it's so much distortion on it, right? And playing more than one note, playing a chord. It also hits my ears like higher than I expect a base to hit.

Because the frequencies, the distortion is a pedal you would put on a guitar pedal for rock and roll. And it adds a lot of high-end frequencies and layers it on. And they put it on a bass instead. And you think Chris Rock's note on this would have been like, I put more distortion on the bass. Yeah, or it's like, kind of feels like one note. To be clear, it's Chris, it's Chris Rock. Yes.

Not Chris Rock. Yeah. A guy called Chris. A guy called Chris like this. I'm not doing an impression of Chris Rock, the comedian. I don't know. I'm doing what I believe Chris Rock. The actual guy named Chris.

Yeah. So he's mostly doing that throughout the entirety of this two minute, 50-something-second song. Boy, it works. There's a couple of squeals he does a little bit later. I called it squeal-fill. Here's the squeal fill when we come back from the. And by the way, I think with that is, just to jump ahead for a second, there's that crazy solo. Let's just jump ahead to, here's what Ad Rock is playing for the guitar solo.

I can just tell you, they were rolling on the floor laughing at this sort of like, you know, sarcastic Ted Nugge. What would some 70s stadium rock would do kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A squealing note. What's weird is that squill feel, which is hard to say. Yeah, you did it, though. That actually sounded more like Hendricks to me. Or Hendricks.

Can you play the Squill feel again? Well, it's probably like, it's like Ted Nugent heard Hendricks and then was like, I think I can steal that. And then Ad Rock is like, I'm not a very good guitar player, so I'm going to sort of make fun of myself trying to be Ted Nogenton, trying to be Hendricks. And then there's one other variation, which you may or may not have noticed in the sort of whispering, listen to all, y'all, it's a sabotage part. And I'll give you some context in a second, but MCA is playing the sort of pretty little descending arpeggio thing here, which again, you may have thought was a guitar, but it's. it's MCA. In the context? What's crazy is that could have been its own remix. That's such a much more

90s hip-hop kind of like sound to sample. But it also sounds like it's so like it almost sounds like blind melon. Like some weird you know what I mean? It's sort of like it sounds so gentle. It's earnest and pretty. So when I was in college, I went to

Georgetown. I started doing comedy in college. I was in a I got cast in a sketch on my freshman year that Mike Barbiglia had organized, very funny man, and a bunch of other friends. I then joined the improv group there. And one thing we did at Georgetown every year,

we would all do comedy, but then there was also like a night called cabaret where they would have a live band and all the people who like sang or wanted to sing in college. I remember this. Yeah, would come to Georgetown. Yeah, so we would do like different songs. So we were not there to sing.

We were there to host. We were the comedy portion of it. But we would open this. every year with a different song. And one year it was me, Mike Barbiglia, and Ed Harrow sang, we opened the show with sabotage. As very much like, not singers.

This is a song, if you're not a singer, you can sing. Was it a parody with new lyrics or just like straight up the song? Okay. And there's... Cabaret cover. Yeah, the reason I bring it up is because that, like, where the bass comes in and sort of resets and changes at the time,

it was like, okay, now we're about to start singing. As non-musicians, it's hard for non-musicians to know when exactly they're supposed to enter a song. It's the most, as me, someone who has to sing a lot, but it's not comfortable and doesn't really understand music. I need those cues that it's like, here I'm about to come in. And it's that moment that you just played up that stem. You're like, okay, now we're about to start singing. So I have a very weird sense memory of that particular moment to come in.

Because that's, its function in the song is to be like, get ready. here it comes. Because every time he plays that, it's about to hit hard. Exactly. A moment later. Yes, exactly. Listen, this is a song with very few notes. Like I pointed out, that it's one note on the bass on the guitar. There are even fewer notes. So here is Ad Rock, Adam Horowitz, on guitar. He will also be screaming in a minute, but first he's doing this. And I'll just pause right there because that's mostly what he's doing with some occasional changes, like over here. That's at the beginning. We get about 40 seconds of that. And then he kind of varies it slightly.

again, just a flat, just a power cord, and some harmonics and just crunching through the entire thing. And it's very punk rock. Yeah, we've got some drums, we've got some bass and guitar. What are the keys doing in this song? Okay, another unsung hero of this episode. We've already given him a shout out. That is Money Mark, Mark Nishita, on keyboards and sometimes construction.

He, quote, according to Mario Caldato, the producer jumped on the organ after he heard the drums and bass thing going on. He hit one chord, started turning the organ all the way up, causing the Leslie, which is the speaker that rotates to distort. You're going to hear basically just a drone throughout the song with some little sounds and squiggles here and there. But here it is, Money Mark playing another A-flat. Yeah. Little sounds here. Little clavinet-y kind of thing there.

Might be a clavid, I'm not sure, but... It sounds like our Stevie. It's got some like wah on it or some effects. Very stevie. Yeah, very seven. And that's running through the entire song. And it's a fun thing on our show where we have groupings of shows, right? Where we just did Roy Ayers.

Everybody Loves the Sunshine also has a drone. And before that, we did Sonic Youth. Cool thing also has a drone. So another strange connection happening with our songs. So is this what's when it all drops out, this is the... Yeah. Exactly right. I was going to say, this is like that real cool connective tissue part where like everything's gone

and then they're just... In the video, I remember them like walking. Yeah, it's like a reservoir dog They're eating their donut, exactly I'll play that for you. Or the donut, yeah. It's so interesting. The only thing that really makes

Cookie Puss sound like it's hip-hop is the scratching, really, if you break it all down. And I know that they're scratching in this song, so it's almost like they've gone full circle. What is the scratching doing in this song? Well, it's interesting because at the time, you know, DJ Hurricane was their DJ,

but he's not, apparently, according to Mario. See, he's not scratching on this track. What you're about to hear was some combination of MCA and add rock. And let's listen to what they cut in. And then I'll show you contextually how it starts to bring in a hip hop element to what would have otherwise, you know, been a Ted Newton track potentially. And then when you add big rock drums and big bass, but those are hip hop scratches. Yeah, I will say. Cuts. Fight me. That might be my favorite part. Is that your favorite part? Yeah, because there's something so hard about it.

So hard. What's he scratching on? Yeah. Well, you know what? I tried to find that. I was not able to locate what the actual sample is. But I was able to find what DJ Hurricane did live when he scratches this song. He talks about how he uses the following. This is from the 2001 soundtrack. Oh my gosh. And it's the Requiem for Soprano Mezzo Soprano and Choirs by Yorgie Legati. Shout out to Yorgie. He's a listener. Yeah. And somewhere in the track, it's not clear exactly where, but he's using this piece of vinyl to just like that, just like, a little sound, just a little fragment of sound, which then becomes a rhythmic loop, basically, but done live. And it's somewhere from this piece. It may not be literally what I'm about

to play for you, but here's what the piece sounds like. It's this weird choir of voices. It's a drone of vocals. It could be from a little later when it does that. Could be from that. But anyway, that's DJ Hurricane. That's what he brought to play the song live. You can cut from that. I mean, most sample track of all time. It's how he bought his house. Yorgie? That's how Yorgie? They finally got paid for it.

So there is one mysterious sample I found when I went in there. And now when you listen to the song, it's obvious. They're not trying to hide it in interviews. They mention they scratch this in. But I do not know what this is. Towards the end of the song, you hear this moment. And I can't isolate it any more than that. Wow.

But it appears to be all bets. That's totally in there. All bets are now. against the wall. I'll play it one more time. One song Nation, if you know what this comes from, let us know in the comments. Now, it's very poorly sung, so it could be the Beastie Boys. But I don't know. I also heard kind of a little bit of a drum beat in there, like a drum machine. For whatever reason, I heard like when Captain America throws his mighty shield, like, Captain America throws his mighty shield. Really? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that's not it, but it has a weird

cadence like that. It's a better guess than I have. Internet do your thing. Thomas will be like, y'all stupid. It's obviously. Y'all like to start everything. It's all stupid. Afro-Lafia had been. All right, it wouldn't be a Becciboys episode if we didn't hear some isolated vocals. What do you want to play for? So here we go. We got AdRog. This is a song where I don't think all three Basty boys are on the song.

They might all be shouting. We'll listen together and decide. But it's Ad Rock all the way through. And he starts the song with this. Crystal Clare? Do it again, Adam. That was, I don't know why you were half-assing it. No, that's amazing. And by the way, I love the fact that he does like the deep breathe-ins Because like on a lot of hip-hop, like they'll take those out But I feel like it's there, you know

He needed to. He was their aesthetic. It's their aesthetic. Yeah. Oh, I know, right? But it's like their aesthetic that they know, leave the breathing in there because it's going to feel more raw. There's also a second sabotage. I'll play that and then I'll hear it together.

And then together we have more of a screamy shouty. So that's the only doubled line. We need to hear the big scream. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is the word. why, but let's listen together and decide that. Get ready.

Brace yourself. I'm holding on on my scene. So that's a couple of them. That's definitely all of them. Yeah, yeah. I think that's got all of them. Also, that truly reminds me of the far side. Like, the far side would do things where they all jump in and like do something

for way too long. All right. Well, fight me. This is my favorite part of the vocal. I don't think anyone's going to fight me because I think it's yours too. But when Ad Rock does his ad rock thing, let's listen. Yeah, when we, when we, We were playing it back in the studio. I noticed that you and I both hit that part.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the satisfying nasal ad rock we all love. That's the cookie puss. By the way, can you keep playing it right past that point? Because I want to get to this Buddy Rich moment. I make no mistakes and switch up my channel.

All right. So for those who don't know, do you know the Buddy Rich that I'm talking about? I'm more of Paul Anka, the guys get shirts than I am the Buddy Rich. So go ahead. Do you guys know what I'm talking about the Paul? I don't know that.

I do. Yeah. Buddy Rich goes off on his like, band or so famously just to set the stage Buddy Rich, great jazz drummer Incredible jazz drummer, right? One of the greatest of all times. Famously has before the era of viral videos

people would sort of share tapes and share funny things and one of them legendarily from like the 70s and 80s I think even was 10 minutes of Buddy Ridge berating his band. They got on the bus after a gig and just like you suck, you fuck, you bet, blah, blah, la I'm up there working my balls off.

Let's hear a little clip from that. What kind of trumpet section do you? You got a fucking meet. Kid me. How dare you for yourself professional? Assholes are playing. Like fucking children up there.

So I knew that one a little bit. The one I remember really loving in the early Remember I was discovering Paul Anka. Okay. Yeah. The guys get shirts for some reason. I don't know what he's like.

And he goes, I don't care if it's Jesus Christ up there. You listen. You follow me. Like it's just, it's similar berating. It's so funny. Okay. The guys get shirt.

shirts. Don't make a fucking maniac out of me. The guys get shirts. Do you understand? We're not going to be as strong as a week as similar. So it's very funny that they pulled the buddy. Yeah, that was a reference to this like famous like pre-viral viral, viral moment. Which again, when you think of it in relation to this song is about Mario C. Like sabotaging them. It's a perfect, it's a perfect example of like a music discord like a music. I love it. It's almost like, you know, berating the people you need. it's almost like when we're here we're like, we'll do it live.

Like we do the bill, oh, it's like, fuck it, we'll do it live. We'll do it live. All right, so we've heard the song, we've heard the stems, we've heard the samples we can't identify,

and all these major riffs. Is this a rap, rock song? Or is it, honestly, just a rock song? It's interesting. I would think of it as a rap, rock song,

but now in hearing it and breaking out, specifically, the music feels pretty rock. Yeah. But what do I know? No, we don't disagree. Like, it's a rock song.

Everything in there is rock song. is rock stuff except the scratching and that one mysterious sample maybe. And it's The Beastie Boys. So you go into it thinking, oh, it's going to be a Beastie Boys. So there must be some hip-hop angle. Not a lot of hip-hop in there. I mean, honestly, I'll say, in my opinion, it's a rock song. Yeah.

You know, for this to be our Beastie Boys episode, there are so many amazing, great rap songs. And we've played snippets of a few in here. But this is not, he's not rapping. And other than the scratching, you could argue there's almost nothing in there that's necessarily hip-hop. Not only that, but it should be sad. And I also, there's at least two rock songs that jump into my brain, especially when we break it down like this. Like that baseline, if it wasn't consciously influenced by sweet emotion by Aerosmith,

Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Then there is definitely, there's some kind of, you know, unintentional connection there. I think that maybe, you know, MCA might have been channeling in the moment, but they're very similar with the chord and the note and et cetera. And then the other one is I was listening back and I was like, oh, that drum hit, what's happening there reminds me a lot of what happens. happens in Killing in the Name of by Rage Against the Machine that does a very similar thing.

It would have been out around the same time. So Rage Against the Machine, Killing in the Name of has a kind of similar moment. It would have been out at the same time. Would have been a huge song for them? Nick, in general, would you consider Beastie plays a band or a hip-hop group? Huh. I guess I would have said, I think it really was, like, what stage I understood them to be. So, like, when I was younger, I think I would have thought, I mean, when I was a little kid,

I don't know if I would have known the distinction for like hip hop and rap even at that point. But I was like, I would have thought of them as like a hip hop group. But then I think they become, I mean, they start as, it's so funny because I think of them as they start as like this punk band that then get into hip hop. But then you hear them getting the mastery of their instruments over the years, especially when you get to Paul's boutique and into now sabotage, which frankly, now that hearing it through. the stems is like not a complicated very hard song to play, but their musicianship grows so tremendously that you think of them more as a as a rock band the longer you go,

but then again, by the late 90s and stuff, and they get into more hip-hop and electronic music. It feels like another... Totally by Hello Nasty. Yeah, exactly. So you're like, well, I feel like it's a great evolution of a band and a group of musicians who clearly just kept following their interest and following, like, inspirational.

to continue to evolve as a band and never stay put. Well, let's talk a little bit about the legacy of sabotage. What impact do we think that the BC Boys, and specifically on Sabotage Head on us. We'll start with you, Nick. I mean, I think for me, I think why I wanted to talk to you guys about the song. One, it rips so hard. It's just such an intense, fun song that's going to get you psyched up.

Whatever you're doing, wherever you're going. This song is going to get you hyped. to I think I have this personal connection because I sang it live was probably one of the first songs I ever performed live so I have a really strong connection to it in that way. The Beasts also

brought so much comedy to their not only to their music but in this case this video to me really symbolized where you could take comedy visuals and incorporate them into a song and that as someone who really

grew up and like as someone who grew up and loved comedy, the merger of comedy and music is so clear here that it was such an influential thing for me personally, both in the music, but also just the visuals of it in this video. So all those things like, I think that's why it left such an impact on it.

I'm just thinking of your show, Kroll Show, when you think about it, it has all of these characters, and there's obviously three and four minute, I don't know how long the average segment was, but you're kind of doing, this like, okay, let's have a short idea. And of course, over the course of an episode or the season, you might see those characters again. Yeah. But I'm kind of connecting some dots here. It's like,

let's have like these three-minute ideas with characters and scenes and references. We did have one song that was a true, like, standalone that I then turned into a character, but we did a song called L.A. Delhi. It was like, what if it's like, like, Van Halen singing like California girls like Van Halen sing about that? But it's like, it's more like Guns and Role. roses or like he looked like Brett Michael's, but about all the different L.A. delis. So it was like canters and greenblats

and again we shot it as much as we could like to look like one of those hair metal bands from the 80s, but just like a Jewish day. So I took a lot of what like what that sabotage aesthetic was and tried to bring it into

like to me so much of my comedy is and I think for you as well is genre driven. Like can you probably evoke a specific visual genre and then make it funny as well. But like play to the height of what that genre is. Yes. It was important. I think one major part of the legacy of this song is that you can't put the B.C.

Boys in a corner. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like this song is clearly a rock song, but also on the same album, you've got get it together with Q-tip, which is fantastic, straight up. Ma Bell, you got the ill communication, like straight up. The eclecticism is a part of who they are. Oh, for sure.

Communication. My bell. Got the ill communication. Ma bell. Got the ill communication. My bell. Got the ill communication. Honestly, hello, nasty.

You forget how like intergalactic felt like it could have been a daft punk song. You know, they work with Spike Jones before he works with Dadpunk. He does defunk where Daft punk wear like the dog mask or whatever. And like that sort of sets them on their aesthetic path. So, you know, they're blazing all these trails. And even as late as like, you know, the 2000. when Lincoln Park does their, you know, album with Jay-Z, like they're setting such a high bar for if you're going to fuse things together

and you're going to be like, you know, a fusion group, for the lack of a better term, you better do it at such a high bar. They have knowledge and reverence for what they're fusing, which I think makes a big difference. And, of course, the humors we've been discussing. Absolutely. They set such a high bar for rock, you know, fusing with all these different things.

But at the end of the day, I do still think of them as hip-hop. And they did open the door for all these. other, let's be frank, white rappers that if you come across it's authentic and not, you know, capitalizing on a genre. I'm talking about Mac Miller. I'm talking about him and him. I'm talking about Paul Wall. Paul Wall of all the most like post-2000 rappers,

I feel like he has a lifetime invitation of the barbecue. He just seems like that dude who's like, I am not capitalizing on it. I am actually in the hood with my grill, in Texas doing my thing. You know what I mean? But what do you think? What do you think is the legacy that,

the Beastie Boys leave for the future of white rappers. And let's be clear. The future for white rappers is bright. Finally. But yeah, no, I think it's like, it's exactly what you said. It's a certain bar if you like, if you want to be, because I think the Beasties earn the respect of every one they came across throughout the years. they you know what I mean like yes they were a novelty in the 80s but you couldn't deny how fucking

catchy and great those songs were i agree their musicianship i'm sure the punk scene was like well they're not punk but they but they can rip and they can they can hang out with us they can do this too and you move on throughout the years and it just becomes undeniable so if you're mac miller and you're like a youtube novelty white rapper then you have to come and then continue to show up yeah and get better and better. And you watch, to me, Mac Miller's music over the years, and you watch him get better and better. The musicianship to the point, obviously, like,

by the time he passed away, where some of those albums are, like, the, you know, feminine mystique, all those, like, those albums and the stuff with Anderson Pack is, like, really high-level, incredible musicianship, incredible respect for the form. Respect. It's respect for the form. And the desire to innovate and collaborate.

And I think that comes through. And you hear like Siza talking about like, Mac Miller is one of the first people to welcome me in. Like that like, and I think the Beastie similarly, we're like, we're going to do this with great respect of whatever genre we're playing in.

If we're going to fuse it, we're going to do it well. And we're going to collaborate with the best people we can collaborate with. And even though we're funny, we're taking this so fucking seriously. And I think that comes through in the music. And Eminem, I think fits similarly into that same job.

The respect. I think you summed up perfectly. I think in the inn, as irreverent as they were. they were never irreverent towards the hip-hop. They were irreverent with great reverence. As AdRox said in that quote, the 808s were always dead serious.

Yes. You know, I think the B-C boys could have been a disaster. But it turns out they combined the best elements of all their genres and they elevated their work to the next level. Before we end the show, we want to play a game with you. It's called What's One Song? And here are the rules. We'll ask you a question.

And you'll give us a song title or an artist as your answer. please answer as quickly as possible. No explanation needed. Don't overthink it. Let's begin. All right. What's one song that you've been listening to lately? I just listened to Zeta over and over. Is it Ethiopian jazz? Yeah. I listen to a lot of this. I'm like Emma Hoy. I listen to a lot of Emma Hoy. She just passed away this like Ethiopian nun who played, lived in Jerusalem for many, many years and played like this super beautiful. beautiful. It's like good

meditating music and it's just like this weird fusion of classical, trained jazz piano and this sort of really meditative way. Pretty current, pretty current and good for the TikTok generation. Anyway,

I listen to a lot of stuff with the beer like Tizetta. It was a big song for me and my wife we listened to on our first date but I listen to a song and I love this. It's a listen to it if you have a chance. It's a beautiful song. Thank you for turning us on to it.

I can't wait to listen to this. We love that answer. That's great. What is one song that you loved as a kid? What's that Beatles song where it's like, Oh, go get out of bed. Oh, a day in the line. That's the Paul part.

Yes. So that song was like, I own that on cassette. And I remember it was the first album that I did listen to in my room alone. And that song I found really, I loved history. And so there's something about that,

that song that I love. What's one song that changed your life? James Brown, machine. I was living. I went to the school when I was like a junior in high school. I went to this place called the Mountain School in in in in Vermont and it was a bunch of kids living on a farm. So it was like 45 kids living in the woods on a farm. We were responsible for all the chores of keeping a farm going and also our studies. There's nothing to do with there's nowhere to go. And so like Friday night we would have like coffee house and you was like a talent show night.

And again, I had gone to like a pretty normal, like, private school in Westchester. It was not like a go be weird. And it was no like go be weird. And I was getting really into like James Brown and Funk. And I did like a lip sync dance to like sex machine. And I have a very clear memory of being like, this is very silly. But I want, I just want to go do this. And like it was okay to be weird and like be maybe be made fun of.

But I just was like, and I felt sexy doing it. So it was like a big, anyway, it really changed me like, no, it's, it's okay to go take this risk, put yourself out there possibly look silly, but also like, you love this song, you love James Brown, go do it. And it was a real, it was a real change for me of as far as like taking, taking some risks and following what was interesting to me. Did you get like the response? It killed. It really, like, it was a great, it was a, the 45 other white kids loved it. No, it killed and it was like, it was really.

it really was invigorating. What's one song we have to break down on a future episode of one song? Oh, the one that I had wanted to do in here that I think you guys had already done a lot was Sly, Family Affair. Yes. That's a great one. Just like, because someone told me somebody it was like, oh, the reason

it has that sort of like... Early drum machine. Well, drum machine, but also was like he just kept recording it over and over. By himself and his bait in his... Yeah, like losing his mind, recording it over and over on the same track. So it sounds like really like, muddy. It's a strange

composite. Like the balance of instruments is unusual, but it's incredibly good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Nick, thank you so much for playing and for spending time with us here on One Song today. Where can people find you on the internet? Do you have anything coming out? You want to plug? Oh, yeah. I have so many things I want to plug. So it's specifically why I'm here.

And it's One Song Nation. I needed that One Song Nation audience here. But I have Big Mouth, the final season of Big Mouth coming out on Netflix, May 23rd. The show that I produced and directed a bit of called

adults coming out on FX May 28th and then drops on Hulu for FX on May 29th. Great. And then I've got a movie coming out that I made with Andrew Rannels like an Italian vacation gone

horribly wrong on June 6th. Awesome. What is that called? It's called I don't understand you. So it's three weeks in a row I have These things that have been collectively like 15 years or more of work. Oh, they're all finally coming out within a month of each other. Three week period.

Well, we can't wait to see all of them. Our audience, I'm sure we'll see all of them to support. Nick Kroll, one of the greatest guests we've ever had on the show. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate your time. It was super fun. Thanks, guys. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok.

You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-I-A-L-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo. And you can find me on Instagram at El-O-Riddle. And you can find me on Instagram at LUXXURY and on TikTok at LuxuryX. And go follow One Song at One Song Podcast on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcasts. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. Also be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all of the songs we discuss in our episodes.

You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, we think that means you like the podcast. So please don't forget. to give us five stars, leave a review, and share us with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the show going. All right, luxury, help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, Luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ D'all Riddle.

And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanez. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo, mixing by Michael Hardman, and engineering by Eric Hicks. Production Supervision by Razak Boykin. Additional production support from Z. Taylor.

The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wyle, and Leslie Guam.