In the early days of Def Jam, there were only a handful of groups managed by then founder and owner Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys were one of those initial Def Jam groups. One of the first solo artists on the label, a teenager at the time who called himself LL Cool J, was actually scouted by the Beastie Boys’ Ad Rock, who tells the story in an exclusive interview of how he brought James Todd Smith to Rick Rubin in 1984.

Ad Rock, whose real name is Adam Horovitz, claims that he made the beat for LL’s 1985 seminal hit “I Need A Beat” on an 808 drum machine that he’d just purchased with his last $250. Rock said he was stuck between choosing a guitar or the drum machine, but the burgeoning Hip Hop legend chose the latter, which was instrumental in the spawning of the production of the Beastie Boys’ debut album License To Ill in 1986.

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