Happy 20th Anniversary to Beastie Boys’ sixth studio album To The 5 Boroughs, originally released June 15, 2004.
In the past 40 years, few groups have been as celebrated and respected as the Beastie Boys. They’re beloved by their peers across many genres and have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and their albums have sold tens of millions of copies. Not bad for a group that was once best known for advocating for fighting for the right party.
But from those early days as a straight-ahead hip-hop act, Adam “King Ad-Rock” Horowitz, Michael “Mike D” Diamond, and Adam “MCA” Yauch have worked to honor their influences and offer something new and fresh each time they drop a project.
To The 5 Boroughs, their sixth full-length project, doesn’t receive the same universal love and acclaim as many of their other projects. Though it was certified Platinum by the RIAA, it’s probably their least revered of their full-lengths. Released 20 years ago, it was their first strictly hip-hop album since the experimental Paul’s Boutique (1989), though it shares more in common with their debut Licensed To Ill (1986). Even though it might not reach the artistic heights of some of their previous releases, the project is a very competent and entertaining collection.
To the 5 Boroughs hit the shelves after what was at that point their longest period between album releases. According to Ad-Rock in the expansive Beasties Book, the group dropped out of a planned tour with Rage Against the Machine after Mike D broke his collar bone and spent the rest of 2000 and into 2001 “doing nothing but being people who watched TV, went on errands, and walked their dogs.” At some point, they decided that it was time to record a new project, and built an expansive, modern studio of their own on an entire floor of an office building on Canal Street in Lower Manhattan.
After recording three successful albums that blended many different musical genres with their hip-hop pedigree, the Beastie Boys went back to their rap roots with To The 5 Boroughs. According to Ad-Rock, this decision came at the behest of MCA, who “declared that whatever our next record was gonna be, it had to be an all rap record.”
Early on, their recording process was stopped dead cold when the September 11 attacks occurred. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the right time for goofy Beastie Boys songs. Things grew even more complicated when the U.S. began their military conflicts with Afghanistan and Iran, and then-President George W. Bush started his march towards reelection with a campaign based on the wars and overall fearmongering.
However, Ad-Rock believed that the album suffered due to the decision to work within the lines. “I feel like the album we ended up making would’ve been way better if it wasn’t limited to rap songs,” he wrote. “A good path to creating something mediocre is having rigid rules for what you’re making and how you’re making it; unfortunately this record took a stumble down the path of mediocrity.”
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Ad-Rock asserts that members of the group sound “tentative” and “wishy-washy” throughout To The 5 Boroughs, and that many of the songs vacillate between “a little forced” and “a little flat.” He further argues that the album’s more political material and social commentary “might’ve been better screamed in a punk-rock style,” asserting that besides Public Enemy’s Chuck D, not many other rappers are good while trying to be serious.
I’ll personally say that if the members of the group were feeling “tentative” while recording To The 5 Boroughs,” I sure don’t hear it in the final product. I also think that they do a perfectly fine job when they decide to be serious. Overall, the project is much better than Ad-Rock believes it is. It’s certainly not the best album that the Beastie Boys ever released, but it’s entertaining on its own terms.
Mainstream hip-hop was a pretty grim place in the mid ’00s, with many artists serving up bloated misfires that tried to serve as many masters as possible. To The 5 Boroughs sounded quite different than many of the major label releases at the time. Lyrically, it successfully mixes the “goofy shit” with pointed social commentary. No matter what his overall feelings were toward the album overall, Ad-Rock wrote that he supported their decision to tackle more political-oriented material. “I’m proud that during a serious time, we got serious,” he wrote.
One “criticism” I do agree with Ad-Rock about is that To The 5 Boroughs misses the presence of Mario Caldato, Jr. aka Mario C, Beastie Boys’ longtime collaborator. He’d engineered all of the group’s albums since Paul’s Boutique (1989) and co-produced their subsequent releases up to that point. However, the Brazilian-born producer was not involved in the recording process for To The 5 Boroughs.
Instead, the group enlisted Ken “Duro” Hill to engineer the album. Duro has a sparkling clean reputation for his sparkling clean mixes, which he worked on while engineering for such artists as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and Alicia Keys. OF course, albums like Check Your Head (1992) and Ill Communication (1994) are particularly gritty, especially the rap-based tracks. That feeling is almost completely absent from To The 5 Boroughs. “If we pushed the record in a more psychedelic and grimy direction, it might’ve been more special,” Ad-Rock wrote.
To be clear, To The 5 Boroughs is not a by-the-numbers slog. The group had never been known for brevity when it came to their albums, but the release was their shortest at the time, clocking in at a little under 45 minutes. It’s never boring, and keeps moving at a brisk clip, which increases its replay value.
Musically, the album features many up-tempo jams, built around solid drum tracks and slices of bass and guitars. None of the three members of the crew are notorious for their lyrical abilities, but they’re all entertaining here, mixing smack talk and playful boasts with serious-minded social commentary. They also make good use of their DJ Mix Master Mike, who began recording with the group on Hello Nasty (1998). One of the greatest turntablists of all time, he contributes to nearly every song, scratching rhythms and vocal hooks.
Things start off decent enough with “Ch-Ch-Check It Out,” the album’s opening song and first single. It comes across as a mix between previous albums’ popular offerings, like “Sure Shot” and “Intergalactic.” With it’s repetitive horn stabs and lyrical references to Miss Piggy and Cable Guy, it’s innocuous fun. “Rhyme The Rhyme Well,” with its droning, gurgling synths and subtle percussion is more compelling. On the mic, the three lean into the old school approach, delivering the individualized hook and a brief eight-bar verse. "Went to the top and never went pop and came back down but still not stopping,” Mike D states.
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The Beastie Boys have long honored their old school hip-hop roots, and they continue these efforts on To The 5 Boroughs. “Triple Trouble,” the album’s second single, samples liberally from Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper Delight,” with the crew delivering old school influenced routines as Mix Master Mike fittingly scratches portions of Chic’s “Good Times.” “3 The Hard Way” evokes early tracks by Run-DMC and LL Cool J, as the crew disperses brief verses over thumping drums and rumbling keys.
Meanwhile, “Oh Word?” is the group’s effort at recreating a mid-1980s electro-hop track, accompanied by more neck-snapping drums and chirping keyboards. It’s also one of the few tracks where the group’s vocals aren’t mixed as clean, with the crew adding a bit of dusty echo and reverb to add to the song’s authenticity.
To The 5 Boroughs does feature its fair share of political material. The crew often takes square aim at Bush and the rising militarism of the United States during the mid ’00s. “Right, Right Now, Now” is the darkest of the group’s socially aware tracks, as they transform a sample of the Partridge Family into something vaguely menacing. The Beasties lay out the bleak state of affairs in the United States and around the globe, positioning themselves as citizens of the world, and advocating for gun control, a cease in military aggression, and an end to racism in all of its forms.
They address what was then the current state of affairs on “It Takes Time To Build,” expressing ways to improve how the United States functions, including but not limited to impeaching the 43rd president and “stop building SUVs strung out on OPEC.” The group lays out even more extensive ambitions on “We Got The,” a call to inspire action from U.S. residents, encouraging them to take it to the streets. The three again trade four bar verses, rapping over a stuttering manipulated guitar sample. MCA in particular is filled with zeal, calling for multilateral nuclear disarmament and inciting the listeners to keep their “eyes on the prize and never wane / Take the bull by the reins / If you want it be the change / Like Gandhi and MLK.”
In some cases the group is able to mix “business” with pleasure, injecting humor into their politically based content, though more often it’s the other way around. “That’s It That’s All” features the group throwing more shots toward Dubya while also being brazenly ridiculous on the mic. Case in point, Ad-Rock announces himself as “a freaky streaker like Winnie the Pooh / T-shirt and no pants, and I dance the bugaloo.” “Brouhaha” features similarly ludicrous imagery and content. After reminding the listeners that they’re “known to bring the hullabaloo on stage or at a spa,” the Beasties rap in broken French, assume the role of Star Trek characters, and go to extraordinary lengths to rock the crowd.
It certainly sounds like the group had a blast recording “Shazam!” The beat is deceptively simple in its execution, with the three trading lines over a stripped-down drum track, a single repetitive synth note, and stabs of horns and vocals. Ad-Rock clearly has a smile on his face as he raps, “I'm in the lab all day I Scrabble all night / I got a bedazzler so my outfit’s tight / When it comes to panache I can't be beat / I got the most style from below 14th Street.”
The entertaining “Hey Fuck You” features the three emcees lobbing a stream of insults at wack emcees. The Beasties had spent much of their career largely agnostic to the anonymous sucker ducks out there, but they’re quite adept at it here, each continuously kicking four-bar verses then passing the mic. “I’m walking on water while you're stepping in shit,” Mike D raps. “So put your sewer boots on before your ass gets lit.”
“Crawlspace” is one of the most delightfully odd tracks in the Beastie Boys’ discography, as the crew describes stalking “back-stabbing, biting emcees” by surreptitiously hiding out in the hidden crevices of their homes. “You better think twice before you start flossing,” Ad-Rock raps. “I’ve been in your bathroom often.” In the Beastie Boys Book, Ad-Rock explains that “Crawlspace” is one of his favorite songs that the group ever recorded. “Not a lot of weirdo stuff in rap,” he writes, “and I hope in our own way we’ve injected some in our time on the mic.”
“An Open Letter To NYC” serves as To The 5 Boroughs’ powerful centerpiece, a “love letter” to the city of New York as the city and its residents recover after “going through hell” and existing in a post-September 11th reality. Sonically, the song eschews the “clean” feel found on the rest of the album, opting for something more intense and kinetic. Throughout the song, Ad-Rock and MCA each speak on how New York City brings together people of all racial and economic backgrounds (often through its public transit systems), while Mike D recalls his experiences growing up in the city through the ‘70s and ’80s. “Dear New York, I know a lot has changed,” Mike D raps. “Two towers down, but you're still in the game / Home to the many, rejecting no one / Accepting peoples of all places, wherever they're from.”
To The 5 Boroughs might not be the most celebrated entry in the Beastie Boys’ discography, but it’s better than it’s often given credit for. Even if some members of the group would have preferred mixing things up, it showed that they were still capable of making a straight-ahead hip-hop album when they wanted to. The group brought the care that was their hallmark and created a pleasant and engaging hidden gem. It’s a loving dedication to their native stomping grounds and the genre of music that got them their fame.
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