Licensed to Ill (Def Jam, 1986) by Beastie Boys

"Now I chill real ill when I start to chill/When I fill my pockets with a knot of dollar bills/Sipping pints of ale out the window sill/When I get my fill I'm chilly chill/Now I just got home because I'm out on bail/What's the time? it's time to buy ale/Peter eater parking meter all of the time/If I run out of ale it's Thunderbird wine/Miller drinking chicken eating dress so fly/I got friends in high places that are keeping me high/Down with Mike D. and it ain't no hassle/Got the ladies of the eighties from here to White Castle"

                                                                                     -Beastie Boys, "Hold It Now, Hit It"

Raising Hell (Profile, 1986) by Run-D.M.C.

I wish I was older so that I could have been around when this album came out.  This was the album that legitimized hip-hop in the mainstream.  And the records are timeless, which is not surprising because Rick Rubin produced the album.  Yet, the leaps and bounds that this album took for an entire culture continue to be recognized and grow in appreciation to this day.  The first three cuts on the album are some of the best music hip-hop has to offer and "Walk This Way" is absolutely iconic.  My favorite line on the album, however, is in the title track where they say, " Kings from Queens from Queens come kings/ We're raising Hell like a class when the lunch bell rings."  In Chuck D's book Fight the Power, he identifies Raising Hell as his favorite album.  It's very easy to understand why.