Celebrating 30 years of Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill

Licensed to Ill has a lot of firsts attached to it.

It was the first full-length album by the Beastie Boys. It was the first rap album to hit number one on the Billboard Charts, knocking off Bon Jovi. And, for a lot of people, it was the first album your parents confiscated.

The Beastie Boys themselves have mixed feelings about the album. Over the years, they've issued formal statments disavowing some of the language on it, especially when it comes to women and the LGBT community.

But the massive success of this one record was also kind of a gateway. It created new rap fans everywhere and helped build a bigger audience for artists like Public Enemy and KRS 1.

Today, q marks the 30th anniversary of the album with an oral history of Licensed to Ill featuring three people who were there when it happened: Def Jam Records label head Russell Simmons, publicist Bill Adler, and photographer and friend of the group, Ricky Powell.

No one has responded? This was the best album of 1986 (sorry Prince)! The rebelliousness...lol Father tripped out because he knew "license to ill" was a play on "license to kill". "Please, dad... Ill means to have fun now." Regardless Pops paid for my very first concert ticket BEASTIE BOYS at Reunion Arena in Dallas. Fishbone opened. I saw them again about a year later with RUN DMC.

LOVE the Beastie Boys!

love this album

I remember some people thought they were Puerto Rican at first because they hadn't seen what they looked like yet, only heard the songs.

Great album, actually led to me discovering and studying Led Zeppelin. I wouldnt call it the best album of 1986 (Janet's Control? Prince's Parade?) but it is definitley top 5 for 86

mynameisnotsusan said:

It was huge but it was almost like a novelty album or a joke/comedy album to me because they were such caricatures. Then Pauls Boutique came along to show how amazingly great they really were.

Paul's Boutique is a fucking masterpeice

Everybody wants to be Black.


But nobody wants to be Black.

dannyd5050 said:

No one has responded? This was the best album of 1986 (sorry Prince)! The rebelliousness...lol Father tripped out because he knew "license to ill" was a play on "license to kill". "Please, dad... Ill means to have fun now." Regardless Pops paid for my very first concert ticket BEASTIE BOYS at Reunion Arena in Dallas. Fishbone opened. I saw them again about a year later with RUN DMC.

This was before my time, but I did hear (and love) Fight For your Right To Party later... Like them a lot, had Ill Communication and Hello Nasty.....

There's an episode of a show on right now on PBS called Soundbreaking and King Ad Rock is one of the people speaking on it.

MickyDolenz said:

There's an episode of a show on right now on PBS called Soundbreaking and King Ad Rock is one of the people speaking on it.

Thanks. I kept hearing about the show but not the name of it.

mynameisnotsusan said:

It was huge but it was almost like a novelty album or a joke/comedy album to me because they were such caricatures. Then Pauls Boutique came along to show how amazingly great they really were.

They WERE having fun (or at least hamming it up for the cameras).

I liked the album at the time, but it's too juvenile for me to listen to now. Paul's Boutique is a much better record I think.

sexton said:

I liked the album at the time, but it's too juvenile for me to listen to now. Paul's Boutique is a much better record I think.

Ooh! Inspired a spin-off thread.

JESUS!

Dasein said:

Everybody wants to be Black.


But nobody wants to be Black.

^^^

tbh...

the B Boys have more knowledge and talent than 99.9% of the black rappers in hip hop!

The only album I won by Beastie boys. Such a classic. hit after hit!

Hold It Now Hit It

She's Crafty

Rhymin & Stealin

ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES!

You're missinG out!

paisleypark4 said:

The only album I won by Beastie boys. Such a classic. hit after hit!

Hold It Now Hit It

She's Crafty

Rhymin & Stealin

ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES!

[Edited 11/25/16 13:27pm]

In all of the interview clips they talk about a movie they are making or want to make.
Russell Simmons actually faced a tonne of challenges while trying to make Tougher Than Leather.
But this was the Beastie's part in it:

Run DMC wrote "Slow And Low", and their demo appears on the 20th anniversary re-issue of King Of Rock.

The following is an excerpt from my new book "Everything Is on the One: The First Guide of Funk" on the topic of Licensed to Ill and the Beastie Boys. Hope you enjoy.

Here is a link about the book: http://www.einpresswire.c...-bookshelf

Here is link to obtain the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp...4865a2eed3

Here is a link to a cover story I did on the Beastie Boys: http://funknstuff.net/the...d-kingdom/

Rap Hip Hops Into the ’Burbs

Nowadays, with how mainstream hip hop has become, it might seem hard to believe rap was almost exclusively made and consumed by blacks. But there was one principal phenomenon responsible for forever changing that: the Beastie Boys. Their producer at the time, legendary knob-twirler Rick Rubin, also oversaw Run-DMC and had begun to attract the attention of more adventurous white music fans by introducing rock guitar into their records (fully realizing both the fusion and crossover potential by pairing Run-DMC with Aerosmith for a remake of their classic “Walk This Way” and its highly entertaining music video).

Rubin was at the helm for the Beastie Boys’ groundbreaking debut album, Licensed to Ill, which I bought the day it came out in 1986 and proceeded to be blown away. The beats, grooves, unique vocalizations, outrageous stream-of-consciousness lyrics, crisp production and overall inventiveness was staggering. At the time of its release the Beasties were a small-time novelty act known primarily by a few club-released 12-inchers and being booed off the stage opening for Madonna’s Like a Virgin Tour. That was all about to change in the blink of an eye and the worlds of rock and rap, not to mention American pop culture, would be forever altered.

With “Fight for Your Right (to Party)” emerging as a breakout smash single and getting into heavy MTV rotation, the Beastie Boys not only swiftly became the most prominent white rap act ever but also the hottest rap act of all time period. They would soon even eclipse the popularity and sales of their fellow New Yorker idols Run-DMC.

For me the seminal moment took place during the spring of 1987 when I (as I often did) hit Palm Springs, Calif., for the traditional week of spring break madness. To my astonishment, literally every vehicle cruising down the main drag was blasting Licensed to Ill. Never in all my years heading out to the desert destination had I heard one album dominating the airwaves to that extent. But what made it even more amazing was here were all these white college- and high school-age kids fully embracing what had to that point been primarily a black and inner-city phenomenon.

After being almost universally dismissed (in many cases loathed as much or more than disco) for years as a fad, not being “real” music and of little interest beyond its core demographic, rap’s sound, style and attitude had shattered those barriers to score a bulls-eye right into the heart of America’s white youth culture. Despite being seen by most nonbelievers as nothing more than untalented, decadent, Budweiser-swilling, misogynistic buffoons, the Beastie Boys had profoundly disrupted the musical landscape and were laughing all the way to the bank.

The truth was they were deceptively talented, quite inventive with a punk rock influence, didn’t take themselves too seriously and much of their persona was tongue-in-cheek. They were equal parts the Three Stooges and the Three Wise Men. It would not be overstating the Beastie Boys’ impact to compare their breaking down the doors for rap to how Elvis Presley crossed over and legitimized rock and roll.

I saw the Beasties at the apex of their popularity and decadence, complete with caged, bikini-clad dancing girls, during the Licensed to Ill Tour at one of my very favorite venues, Los Angeles’ Greek Theater. Even though they would later take up instruments as opposed to merely rapping, as was the case under the stars at the Greek, the Beastie Boys were always more of a studio concoction than live sensation and so their show left me rather nonplussed. But it was quite a scene and a certain moment captured in time.

As a music journalist for Inside Video and Music in 1989, I met up with the Beastie Boys at a house in the Hollywood Hills where they were holed up following their relocation from the East to West Coast during their promotion cycle for Paul’s Boutique. The experience was like hanging out with some stoner high schoolers whose well-off parents were out of town. After a couple of hours of what amounted to idle chit-chat, despite my ongoing efforts to rein them in, they ended the visit by heading out to shoot some hoops. It was a surreal and unforgettable afternoon, and resulted in a kooky cover story (available at funknstuff.net).

^