Credit: Alamy

The Beastie Boys were an iconic part of the hip-hop scene in the 1980s and will always be a significant part of the culture. Their album Licensed To Ill is still one of the highest-selling rap albums of all time, and the trio will forever be part of the hip-hop history books.

Comprised of Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock, the collective, akin to Run-DMC, was an act embracing the many parallels between rock and rap music. With the help of legendary producer Rick Rubin, the trio would take the wacky energy of punk and fuse it with hip-hop to create something truly unique.

After building a buzz in New York City with rap-rock around the same time as Run-DMC, by 1985, the crew had gained enough traction to warrant a touring deal with Madonna, and shortly after, Licensed To Ill arrived. The 1986 album achieved huge commercial success and became the first rap record to ever debut at number one on the Billboard 200. The band would continue to release music and would release a total of five albums before the turn of the millennium one of which was Paul’s Boutique.

Paul’s Boutique was released in 1989 and was the trio’s sophomore album. Although it wasn’t a complete disaster and was received relatively well, the project saw them make several marked changes. In the time between their debut and their second album, the Beastie Boys had departed Def Jam and Rick Rubin, meaning they no longer had the 1980s hitmaker creatively directing their music.

However, this was a blessing and curse for the Beastie Boys because although it meant they got to shape the album in their image and, with the help of LA-based production duo The Dust Brothers, they produced what many refer to as the “Sgt. Pepper of hip-hop.” The body of work was far more experimental than Licensed To Ill, and its production style was less rock-focused.

Furthermore, it has aged exceptionally well, and hip-hop fans retrospectively consider the project underappreciated. Still, while making comparisons to The Beatles, one of the tracks on Paul’s Boutique took direct inspiration from the British band. The closing track of the Beastie Boys sophomore album, ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’, drew inspiration from how The Beatles finished their Abbey Road album.

Abbey Road was a melange of unfinished songs, unheard parts of tracks from other albums, and off-the-cuff recordings. The Beastie Boys’ ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ did this in one track and assembled similar kinds of recordings into one 12-minute song. The shortest of recordings heard in ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ is 48 seconds, with the longest being 2 minutes and 22 seconds.

In the Beastie Boys Book, group member Mike Diamond wrote about this song: “We could have spent time working on them and developing them more fully, instead we decided to shove them all together into one medley and call it a bouillabaisse… coming from hardcore, we always loved the economy of super-short songs.”

The track’s name indicates its nature, as a bouillabaisse is a stew with lots of ingredients thrown in. The nine recordings that makeup ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ are named on the tracklist as shown below.

a. “59 Chrystie Street”
b. “Get on the Mic”
c. “Stop That Train”
d. “A Year And A Day”
e. “Hello Brooklyn”
f. “Dropping Names”
g. “Lay It on Me”
h. “Mike On The Mic”
i. “A.W.O.L.”