Beastie Boys Licensed To Ill CD

Wholly original, the first and the best rap group to make the genre universally palatable. These Brooklyn boys succeed with a combination of tremendously exciting backgrounds, from straight riff metal (on 'Rhymin' & Stealin" and 'She's Crafty') to sample ('The New Style'). Having learnt their art by observing rather than participating while at NYU, they sound street-cred, even though some members are positively middle-class. The Volkswagen badge-stealing craze was unknowingly started by the band, who wore the pendant merely in order to mock the hippies who had worn the ban-the-bomb medallion. The rap album for people who think they don't like rap.

Additional personnel includes: Kerry King (guitar).

Personnel: Kerry King (guitar).

Audio Mixer: Joe Blaney.

Photographer: Sunny Bak.

The Beastie Boys: Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, Adam "MCA" Yauch, Mike "Mike D" Diamond (rap vocals).

Q (9/94, p.123) - 4 Stars - "...LICENSE TO ILL remains the world's only punk rock rap album, arguably superior to NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS...knowing that apathy and slovenliness were just around the corner..."
Q (p.132) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[A]n album's worth of yelping hip hop and snarling guitar riffs....[The album] remains one of their very finest moments."
Vibe (12/99, p.158) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century
Melody Maker (7/22/95, p.35) - Bloody Essential - "...There's lots of self-reverential bragging, more tenuous rhymes than are usually permitted by law and, most importantly of all, an unshakably glorious celebration of being alive....A surprisingly enduring classic."