I know we don’t do RIP’s as frequently as we used to, just because well, a lot of celebrities die all the time. But I figure it’d be a shame for me to not at least pay some kind of tribute to a guy who was at the heart of a band that I like so much that I’ve listened to all their albums. Adam Yauch, or better known as MCA, died earlier today at the age of 47 as the result of a long battle with cancer that started back in 2009. I had been aware that this was something he’d been dealing with, but it’s still a surprise when anyone so young and full of tenacity succumbs to such a thing.
Yauch started the Beastie Boys in 1979 with Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock Horowitz as part of New York’s underground punk scene. They eventually made the leap to another then-burgeoning form of underground music, hip-hop, and the rest as they say is history. The Beasties burst on to the scene with the multi-platinum License To Ill in 1986, and never missed a beat from there. Each album was a new adventure into some new sound, as these guys always seemed primed to re-invent themselves. And that’s basically why these guys always have been, and probably always will be my favorite hip-hop artists of all time, because they never confined themselves to the passing trends of a genre that sees so few artist that last 5 years, let alone 25 years. MCA always struck me as the wise elder statesman of the Beastie Boys, and I can’t imagine Mike D and Ad-Rock carrying on with the Beasties name with out him, so I really have no idea what’ll happen with them. What I do know is I’ll probably be listening to Paul’s Boutique more than a few times over the next day or so.