Antonia Vail

The year was 1986. The Oprah Winfrey Show had just premiered, skillful backcombing was held in place with Aqua Net, the first ever computer virus was spreading, and Top Gun was the year’s highest grossing film. It was also the year that, on November 15th, three New York men in their early twenties would release their debut album, Licensed to Ill. This album would launch the East Coast hip-hop scene from underground to mainstream and change the game entirely. Licensed to Ill is arguably one of the most influential hip-hop albums the East Coast has to offer. But how did it all begin?

Adam Yauch and Mike Diamond (better known as M.C.A. and Mike D, respectively) started playing music together during their late teen years. Their band was called Young Aborigines, a four-piece hardcore punk outfit heavily influenced by the likes of Black Flag and Minor Threat. However, their style started to change once they changed their name to Beastie Boys and added Adam Horovitz (known as Ad-Rock) to the mix.

It was Ad-Rock that encouraged a hip-hop style and decided to purchase a Roland 808 drum machine over a Rickenbacker guitar. The other two musicians became less involved as the group became more enticed by hip-hop. They would eventually leave the group in 1983, thus creating the legendary hip-hop trio we all know and love.

That same year, the Beastie Boys went on to record their first singles. The two tracks were titled “Beastie Revolution” and “Cooky Puss,” the latter of which caught the attention of an NYU student named Rick Rubin. Rubin instantly wanted to work with the boys, and he got Russell Simmons (manager of Run–D.M.C.) on board. It was in Rubin’s NYU dorm room that Rubin and Simmons began constructing ideas to form a label that would become the famous Def Jam Recordings. Rick Rubin wanted the Beastie Boys to garner some traction before releasing a debut album, so he landed them the gig as openers for Madonna on her Like A Virgin tour in 1985.

The guys started recording Licensed to Ill in late ‘85 to early ‘86, presumably at a New York studio called Chung King Studios (then known as Chung King House of Metal). Chung King was the studio responsible for the early successes of the not only the Beastie Boys, but other East Coast acts such as LL Cool J and Notorious B.I.G.

Licensed to Ill, recorded under Def Jam Records, brought new ideas to the table. One of these new ideas was the art of sampling: taking a section of music directly from a song or track (not just similar chords) and playing it under the drum track. The whole concept for the album was to mock the mainstream “hair metal” scene that was going on in the 1980s. The group thought that those artists took themselves too seriously and saw that whole scene as a joke; their music video for “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn” showcases this belief. By February, Licensed to Ill had been certified platinum, skyrocketing the Beastie Boys into a successful career spanning almost three decades.