By 1994 the Beasties had settled into their cultural role as the grand arbiters of cool, and Ill Communication is pretty much a catalog of coolness: live funk, a bit of hardcore, ingenious samples of obscure records, keyboards by analogue master Money Mark, guest shots by Q-Tip and Biz Markie, MCA's cop-show metal number "Sabotage," and the inevitable cascade of witty old-school rhymes. But it's also a surprisingly mature record from a band that had, after all, been at it for 12 years already.
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