One of the early smashes of hip-hop history, The Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill, has reached another epic sales plateau, receiving diamond status from the RIAA after it passed 10 million in sales as of March 4.
The album was a runaway success for Def Jam when it dropped during November of 1986, hitting platinum status by February. Seven of the record's 13 tracks would become singles, including iconic numbers such as "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)." It was the largest commercial success for any hip-hop album at the time, and today it sits at no. 8 on the all-time bestselling hip-hop albums list, sitting right behind Tupac Shakur's All Eyez On Me, which received diamond status last year.
The new sales status only further confirms Licensed to Ill as the bestselling hip-hop album of the '80s. It was also the first hip-hop album ever to top the Billboard 200.
Platinum hip-hop albums (and albums in general) have been few and far-between over the last few years. Eminem had little trouble, as usual, with The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Jay Z's Magna Carta...Holy Grail also got to the mark quickly, and Kanye West took a tad longer with Yeezus but made it during early 2014. Drake's If You're Reading This It's Too Late has hit somewhat of a bump in terms of sales, but should make it to platinum by the end of 2015.
Licensed to Ill will celebrate its 30th anniversary during 2016 but don't expect the remaining members of the group, Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, to make anything of it. The latter emcee told Rolling Stone that "Twenty-five should've been a bigger deal, but I didn't even notice...thirty is a bland anniversary. Maybe the 50th." Diamond and Horovitz agreed to fold the group following the death of Adam "MCA" Yauch in 2012.
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