Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys (often erroneously referred to as The Beastie Boys) were an American hip hop group from New York City formed in 1978. For the majority of its existence, the group was composed of Michael Mike D Diamond (vocals, drums), Adam MCA Yauch (vocals, bass) and Adam Ad-Rock Horovitz (vocals, guitar, programming).Beastie Boys were formed as a four-piece experimental hardcore punk band, the Young Aborigines, in 1978 by Mike D (vocals), Jeremy Shatan (bass), John Berry (guitar) and Kate Schellenbach (drums). When Shatan left the Young Aborigines in 1981, Adam Yauch replaced him on bass and the band changed their name to Beastie Boys. Berry left shortly thereafter and was replaced by Horovitz.After achieving local success with the 1983 experimental hip hop single Cooky Puss, Beastie Boys made a full transition to hip hop, and Schellenbach left. They toured with Madonna in 1985 and a year later released their debut album Licensed to Ill, the first rap record to top the Billboard 200 chart. The group released seven more albums: Pauls Boutique (1989), Check Your Head (1992), Ill Communication (1994), Hello Nasty (1998), To the 5 Boroughs (2004), The Mix-Up (2007), and Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (2011).Beastie Boys have sold 20 million records in the United States, making them the biggest-selling rap group since Billboard began recording sales in 1991. With seven platinum-selling albums from 1986 to 2004, Beastie Boys were one of the longest-lived hip hop acts worldwide. In 2012, they became the third rap group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the same year, MCA died of cancer and Beastie Boys disbanded.

Bio from Wikipedia - See more on en.wikipedia.org Text under CC-BY-SA license