Today in Hip-Hop — October 31: Ad-Rock Turns 60, and the Villain Who Left on Halloween

October 31, 1966. Adam Keefe Horovitz is born in Manhattan, the son of playwright Israel Horovitz. Today Ad-Rock turns 60. Here’s the jewel. The first Beastie Boys record he played on was a prank call. “Cooky Puss” was cut at Celebration Recording in March 1983 and pressed on Rat Cage Records. It’s a crank call to a Carvel ice cream shop over a beat, and it was the group’s first hip-hop recording. A downtown punk band started its rap career by trolling a soft-serve counter.

The Kid Who Flipped the Band

Horovitz came up through the hardcore scene, playing guitar in The Young and the Useless, a band that shared bills with the Beasties. When founding guitarist John Berry left, the teenage Horovitz took his spot. After that the band stopped sounding like a hardcore act. “Cooky Puss” turned into an underground club hit across New York, so the group started rapping in its sets and hired an NYU student named Rick Rubin to DJ. You know how that story ends: Def Jam.

The B-side came with the best receipt in Beastie lore. British Airways ran a slice of “Beastie Revolution” in a TV ad without asking, and according to the band, they sued and walked away with $40,000. Some people still argue over whether the full legend happened as told. As the story goes, the money paid for a loft at 59 Chrystie Street in Chinatown, which became their crib and rehearsal room. Six years later the address turned up as a snippet inside the “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” suite on Paul’s Boutique. In 1985 Ad-Rock had a cameo in Krush Groove, and since then he’s worked as an actor, played bass in Bridget Everett’s band The Tender Moments, and done remixes under the alias 41 Small Stars. He’s 60 now and still the nasal voice everybody does an impression of.

The Villain Left on Halloween

October 31 is heavy for another reason. Six years ago today, Daniel Dumile, MF DOOM, died in Leeds, England. Nobody outside his family knew for two months. His wife Jasmine announced it on December 31, 2020, and the cause wasn’t made public until 2023. The man who started rocking Nuyorican open mics with tights pulled over his face, then built a whole supervillain mythology around a metal mask, left this world on the one night a year everybody wears one. Run back our Operation: Doomsday anniversary piece, or rock the MF DOOM Madvillain hoodie tonight instead of a costume. All caps when you spell the man name.

From Chrystie Street to Your Closet

That British Airways check paid for the loft, and the loft ended up in the credits of one of the most sample-dense albums ever made. We made a Beastie Boys Paul’s Boutique tee for the heads who know the whole chain, from the prank call to the lawsuit to the loft to the record. Happy 60th, King Ad-Rock.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 2011: A$AP Rocky’s Live. Love. A$AP (15 years). A free download that dropped two and a half weeks after he signed a $3 million deal with Polo Grounds and RCA. It’s a Harlem kid rapping over Clams Casino haze and chopped-and-screwed hooks, which is Houston’s slowed-down DNA that DJ Screw built, carried uptown.
• 2000: OutKast’s Stankonia (26 years). Big Boi and André 3000 recorded it at their own newly bought Atlanta studio and named the album after the room. “Ms. Jackson” had hit as a single exactly one week earlier.
• 1995: Cypress Hill’s III: Temples of Boom (31 years). The spookiest Cypress record came out on Halloween. DJ Muggs went slow and smoky, RZA co-produced, and U-God came through for a guest spot. “No Rest for the Wicked” opened the Ice Cube beef over the “Friday” hook. Rep it with the Cypress Hill hoodie.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones