The Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two review

Posted on 4 June 2011
By Matt Barden
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It’s been seven years since The Beastie Boys’ last album, To the 5 Boroughs, but the New Yorkers are back and still passing the mic three decades into their careers.

When you sit and think about the reality of the album – that you’re listening to three rappers in their mid-40s spitting goofy jokes and nostalgic lines – it can all seem a bit surreal.

But the Beasties have always been about fun and these thoughts quickly pass, soon you’re nodding your head to funky breakbeats and quick fire mic passing sessions like it’s the early 90s all over again.

The album launches itself straight into nostalgia. Make Some Noise harks back to their Fight for your Right heyday with its funky keyboards and even funkier rhymes.

Enlisting the help of hometown rap God, Nas, the four MCs trade verses on Too Many Rappers, mixing in Space Invaders noises to create one of the albums standout tracks.

The record is a mix of chaotic instrumentation, steel drums, playful synths and distorted verses, but they manage to pull it together and make it all seem effortless and fun.

Plenty of time has passed on the B-boys but they have not sat back and rested on a stellar back catalogue to see them through retirement. They are still as full of creativity and ideas as they were when they started out in the early 80s.

They create their own world – full of nerdy obsessions, sneakers, throwback samples and funny wordplay – and invite you in.

Hot sauce Committee Part Two puts many a new artist’s efforts to shame, The Beasties may take you on a nostalgic trip through the 90’s and ignore the ‘real’ world to some extent, but they sound as fresh as they did on No Sleep till Brooklyn and a lot of ‘hot, new’ rappers could learn a thing or two from the granddaddies of Hip-Hop.

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