In 1981, New York witnessed the formation of the first successful white hip-hop group. Mike D, Ad-Rock, and MCA emerged from the hard-core punk scene of the late 1970s and fought for our right to party to a different sound. Their "Licensed to Ill" sold 720,000 copies in six weeks, making it Columbia'
The bleakest, filthiest junkhouse in the mansion of rock 'n' roll serves as a crash pad to the memory of this band, which romanticized every deadly vice and self-destructive habit known to man. Founded in the early 1960s by Lou Reed, an educated Jewish junkie, and the classical violist John Cale, the