Beastie Boys, Licensed to Ill

Embroidery stitched directly through a vinyl record sleeve.

12x26x2 inches, framed in acrylic.

     I remember when this album was released in 1986, I was a sophomore in high school and at the time was heavily into rock n roll. Hip hop and rap was in its infancy and not something I had payed much attention to. Then I heard this album and I was like, what is this? License to Ill was like nothing I’d ever heard before, I was immediately hooked. They were the reason a lot of people including myself started listening to rap music. This was also the first rap album to top the billboard charts. The Beastie Boys were from Brooklyn, not far from where I grew up and I had the luxury of seeing them perform in their early days.  They put on an amazing show. Again, like nothing I had seen before. This album is also on most lists of the top albums of all time. The artwork features a painting of the Beastie Boys jet crashing into a mountain painted to look like a joint being extinguished. The front of the album shows half of the graphic with the back showing the other. I created two versions of this album, a double featuring the front and back and a single featuring the front only. I embroidered the plane in multiple colors of wool thread in an abstract style using different stitch lengths. For an added touch, since they hailed from NYC I created a collage on matte board of dozens of supreme stickers. I then placed the collage over the album and embroidered and then laser cut a swarm of butterflies flying over the background.