2 min read

What the Beastie Boys Taught Me About Innovation

Picture of Greg Bovitz Greg Bovitz Jun 13, 2022 8:23:01 PM

#innovation
What the Beastie Boys Taught Me About Innovation

Now, here’s a little story I’ve got to tell

About three bad brothers you know so well.

It started way back in history

With Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D.

Specifically, this story started way back in 2009, when these three Beastie Boys put on what turned out to be their final concert performance before the tragic passing of MCA, singer and bassist Adam Yauch, due to cancer.  Last week, this concert made its full-length streaming debut as a limited release on YouTube in conjunction with Bonnaroo’s “Virtual Roo-Ality” livestream.  And it’s an incredible gift to the Beasties’ fan base.  The passion and creativity that the Beastie Boys display throughout the show is energizing and inspiring; you can just feel how much they loved their craft and how excited they were to share it with like-minded fans.   

I love live music like this; it’s transcendent.  But these days when I watch live music, I find myself also appreciating it for the lessons it holds. 

Great music artists are incredible innovators.  But that ability to innovate doesn’t just come from their talent and creativity; it’s rooted in a deep-seated desire to create something unprecedented.  They aim to satisfy their own unmet need, and they become their own muse.  And it’s exactly those kinds of personal wants and needs that provide the most powerful inspiration for innovation—in art and in business alike.

In the case of the Beastie Boys, they innovated by creating music that they absolutely love.  And then they kept innovating; they were personally driven to continue to experiment and find new ways to delight themselves.  In the Beastie Boys Story documentary on Apple TV+, Ad-Rock and Mike D. explain that putting together their legendary debut album Licensed to Ill was about finding beats and tracks that truly spoke to them and then (with Rick Rubin’s help) making something of them for themselves.  This initial desire to innovate carried through the Beastie Boys’ career as they evolved into the unique rap + rock style unveiled in their 1992 studio album, Check Your Head.  This innovation mindset can even be seen in the Beastie Boys’ pursuits outside of music, like Ad-Rock’s partnership with exquisite NYC sandwich shop Num Pang, in which he reimagined his beloved pastrami-on-rye as a bahn mi sandwich: the “Ad-Rock Pang.”  It seems ingrained in him, and the other Beastie Boys, to create something they love and then share it with the world.    

Compare that mindset to that of brand managers at the world’s biggest companies.  Are they truly inspired by their innovation pipeline?  Are they creating something they personally love and then sharing it with the world?  That authenticity—or lack thereof—is easier to spot than brands might think, and personally, if a new innovation doesn’t excite the brand team or its muse in the way that the Beastie Boys’ music did for themselves, then it’s not interesting to me.  That’s my standard.  Mmm…drop!!!          

- Greg
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