Beastie Boys Comment on Eminem's Album Cover Nod to 'Licensed to Ill'

Beastie Boys Comment on Eminem’s Album Cover Nod to ‘Licensed to Ill’

2018-09-18

Story by Charles Ken

Eminem’s cover art for “Kamikaze” looks a lot like the Beastie Boys’ artwork for 1986, “Licensed to Ill”

If you’re a Beastie Boys fan and saw the cover of Eminem’s surprise album, “Kamikaze,” chances are, you noticed that the art is very similar looking to the Beastie Boys’ cover for their groundbreaking 1986 debut, “Licensed to Ill.” The cover depicts the back of a silver fighter plane, much liked the Beastie Boys’ celebrated artwork.

So, were the Beasties in on this fun? Not at all. In a new interview with Canada’s House of Strombo show, Beastie Boy Michael “Mike D” Diamond stated that he and band mate Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz didn’t even know about the Eminem cover ahead of time.

“I get, like, 10 text messages, 20 text messages. And I’m like, ‘Why do I all of a sudden have 50 text messages? I better see what’s going on,'” Diamond said in the interview. “Everybody’s forwarding me the album cover from, like, the Twitter feed, or whatever. So, that’s how we found out.”

When asked for their thoughts about Eminem’s nod to the Beasties, Mike and Ad-Rock didn’t think much of it one way or another. Stream the full interview via House of Strombo here.

In other news, Diamond and Horovitz will unleash a major, nearly 600-page book that goes into detail about the history of the Beastie Boys on Oct. 30. The book features contributions by Amy Poehler, Colson Whitehead, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson and Luc Sante, to name a few, and writing by Ad-Rock and Mike D.

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Charles Ken

Meet the expert - Charles Ken is a graduate of Michigan State University where he studied writing and history. He's a longtime music buff and covers classic rock for Audio Ink Radio. Contact him at ken@audioinkradio.com.