This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.

Up next, a story about one of the most unlikeliest hip-hop bands in American history.

Here's Greg Engler with a story.

In 1987, three white Jewish boys from New York City were the most fascinating phenomenon in the burgeoning

rap music scene. No, really, the Beastie Boys, barely out of their teens, had just released

Licensed to Ill, which quickly reached number one on the charts, the first hip-hop album to achieve that exalted status.

And true, it was the fastest selling debut album in the history of Columbia Records under the

Def Jam label. But everybody knew that these three knuckleheads who were clever enough to come

up with the schick that clicked with MTV Loloving suburbia were just a novelty act.

Now, here's a little story I got to tell about three bad brothers you know so well.

It started way back in history with AdRop and me.

The cartoonish trio consisted of Adam MCA Yauk, Adam Adrock Horowitz, son of prominent playwright Israel Horowitz, and Michael Mike D. Diamond.

Three MCs from NYC started out as a hardcore punk band opening for legendary punk groups like The Misfits and

the Dead Kennedys in some of the most legendary clubs in the world such as CBGB's.

In 1983, they released a track that was basically a crank call set to a hip-hop beat.

It became an underground favorite, but in order to play the song during

their live sets, they brought in a DJ known as DJ Double R. Rick Rubin was a long-haired

NYU student who would temporarily become the fourth white Jew of the Beastie Boys.

But Rubin's DJ stint would be short-lived and he left the group

in order to focus on his small indie rap label called

...