this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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You rarely hear anyone cover the Beastie Boys. Is it because their songs rely so much on samples that they’re impossible to recreate legally without making a profit? How did they not get sued into oblivion with hundreds of samples used? Where do those royalties go today?

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[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't think hip hop songs in general tend to get covered, or at least not that I'm aware of (am absolutely open to being corrected on that).

I guess a lot of the rhymes are often very specifically about the person rapping, so someone else doing it might be a bit weird.

That said, I do know of one good example in eLZhi's Elmatic a remake of Nas' Illmatic. It has significantly rewritten lyrics though.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah. There isn't a tradition of covering someone else's rap because the rapper was originally supposed to be both writer and performer. A lot of Beastie Boys songs are written in that perspective.

That being said, not all of their songs are like that and there is some cross genre mixing with rock. I can see Fight For Your Right or Sabotage getting easily covered.

[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

This Sabotage cover was always great.

https://youtu.be/N95bs9kwXFU