A Beastie Boys and Eminem collab almost happened after the 2012 passing of MCA.
Beastie Boys are one of the early influences of Eminem, and the rapper was so close to a collaboration with two of the members of the group.
Beastie Boys’ close affiliate Mix Master Mike had a new interview with AllHipHop, in which he revealed that he almost set up a collaboration between Eminem, Mike D and Ad-Rock after MCA’s death in 2012.
“I actually reached out to Eminem,” he said. “I called him and Paul [Rosenberg], and I pushed for a song. I had the beat made and everything. It was gonna be Beastie Boys, Eminem and a Mix Master Mike track. Eminem was like, ‘Let’s f–king go.’ I was spearheading this, so I brought it to Mike and Ad-Rock’s attention.”
But the two remaining group members were not ready for the collab. “They were like, ‘It’s kind of weird we don’t have Yauch anymore, so we feel a way that out of respect of Adam that we don’t do it.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? Adam would love this.’
“I was really trying to push this. It would have been f–king insane. I was like, ‘Mike just give me 32 bars. Just rap.’ But I respected their wish to not do it. Our captain is not here anymore. But maybe if I push it again, who knows?
“I was in the process of getting bars from Eminem. He was so pumped cause these are his heroes. I was kind of fulfilling his dream. I’m the gatekeeper of his dream. I felt that was a responsibility on my behalf to present that to him. The great white hopes of Hip Hop [laughs].”
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In 2018, Eminem paid homage to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 album “Licensed to Ill” through his artwork of “Kamikaze”. “Obviously, yes, there was something about ‘Licensed to Ill’ — you had the Zeppelin samples and their vibe. You had Run-DMC, who were so cool, with the attitude of ‘F—k you if you don’t like us.’ Same as the Beastie Boys,” said Eminem in 2013. “‘F—k you. We f—ing curse. We spit beer. We throw it on our f—king fans.’ And obviously as they got older their views and things changed, as all of ours do. You can be mad at their sh–t for not sounding like their last sh–t, but if it did, then they didn’t grow as artists. Same as me.”
