Celebrating The 25th Anniversary Of “Ill Communication” – Beastie Boys Documentary

On Friday, May 31, Beastie Boys’ fourth Hip Hop album, 1994’s Ill Communication turned 25. A space in time which has seen the landscape of hip hop both evolve and devolve with various characters coming and going, this small mini-doc does much to tell the stories of times past. Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “King Ad-Rock” Horvitz, the surviving members of the collective given Adam Yauch’s untimely passing in 2012 at only 47, have teamed up with Amazon Music to recollect the Beastie Boys’ rejuvenation in the years after the release of 1989’s Paul’s Boutique. Additional focus is shown to the recording of Sabotage, one of the albums lead singles from Ill Communication which still has one of the best music videos of all time directed famously by Spike Jonze. The project itself has contributions from Money Mark, Eric Bobo and Amery “AWOL” Smith,  plus Q-Tip and Biz Markie.

Accompanying the video is the longform audio documentary of the same name, exclusive to Amazon Music: a 40+ minute deep dive featuring longer interviews with Horovitz and Diamond as well as six full songs from Ill Communication. The extended audio documentary is available to hear on Amazon Music for any Amazon Prime member, or any subscriber to Amazon Music Unlimited.