Origin: New York, NY

Decades: 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's

As the first white rap group of any importance, the Beastie Boys received the scorn of critics and strident hip-hop musicians, who accused them of cultural pirating, especially since they began as a hardcore punk group in 1981. But the Beasties weren't pirating -- they treated rap as part of a post-punk musical underground, where the do-it-yourself aesthetics of hip-hop and punk weren't that far apart. Of course, the exaggerated b-boy and frat-boy parodies of their unexpected hit debut album, Licensed to Il... Read More

Black Flag, Led Zeppelin, Run-D.M.C, Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, The Sugarhill Gang, James Brown, Minor Threat, Frank Zappa, Santana, Bad Brains, The Meters, War, Funkadelic, Jimmy Smith, Grandmaster Flash and Sly Stone

311, Beck, bis, Bloodhound Gang, Buffalo Daughter, Cornelius, Cypress Hill, Eminem, Rage Against the Machine, The Avalanches, The Chemical Brothers, P.O.D., Steriogram, Pop Will Eat Itself, Ween, Ben Lee, MC Lars, Sum 41, Kid Rock, House of Pain, Titan, Mark Ronson and Bentley Rhythm Ace