Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, known as MCA, dead at 47

Adam Yauch speaks at the Apple Soho store in 2008 Photograph: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

Rapper Adam Yauch, a third of the trailblazing hip-hop act the Beastie Boys, has died aged 47.

Yauch, who performed as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009 after discovering a tumor in his parotid gland.

The band's management posted a lengthy statement on the Beastie Boys website:

It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam "MCA" Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer.

Initially dismissed as a trio of jokers who scored a fluke novelty hit with Fight for Your Right (To Party) on their 1986 debut License to Ill, the Beastie Boys would grow into one of the most ambitious and influential acts of the 1990s.

 

The densely layered followup to their jokey and spare debut was 1989's Paul's Boutique, a postmodern hip-hop masterpiece that was largely ignored at its release. Today the Dust Brothers-produced record is considered a seminal album that would hint at the genre-bending direction 1990s pop was heading.

Subsequent records Check Your Head and Ill Communication found an instant foothold in the mainstream, however, propelling the band to stratospheric stardom.

Their lyrics were packed with goofy couplets, in-jokes and pop-culture references. And each of the Beasties cultivated distinct personas and vocal deliveries that meshed well together and could stand alone.

Yauch's voice was mellow, gravelly and gruff – sandpaper and warm beer – allowing him to play both the shady drifter (Paul Revere) and loveable buddy ("My man MCA's got a beard like a billy goat").

 

The Brooklyn-born Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys in 1981, originally as a punk rock outfit with Mike "Mike D" Diamond, drummer Kate Schellenbach and guitarist John Berry in 1981. The group got its start playing underground clubs around New York and released an EP later that year.

Schellenbach and Berry would leave the band, though and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz, a third middle-class Jewish kid from New York, came on board.

After eschewing punk for an exaggerated fratty b-boy posture, the trio would go on to become the unlikely first white rap group to achieve massive mainstream success – to the initial chagrin of hip-hop purists.

After poorly received tours opening for Madonna and Run DMC, the band released Licensed to Ill in 1986, which struck a surprise chord: the Rick Rubin-produced album was fastest-selling debut in Columbia Records' history, selling more than 750,000 copies in its first six weeks.

 

The Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, but Yauch was unable to attend due to his health. His cancer treatments also delayed the release of the group's most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2.

In addition to his career in music, Yauch was a film-maker and passionate Buddhist and defender of Tibetan rights. Yauch directed many of the band's music videos under the name Nathanial Hörnblowér, including So What'cha Want, Intergalactic and the more recent Make Some Noise.

Yauch, who is survived by his wife, Dechen Wengdu, and their daughter, Losel, wrote a letter to his bandmates and fans for last month's hall of fame induction: "I'd like to dedicate this to my brothers Adam and Mike," he wrote. "They walked the globe with me. It's also for anyone who has ever been touched by our band. This induction is as much ours as it is yours."

Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch Dies at 47

 

Adam Yauch, founder of the hip hop trio The Beastie Boys, has died. He was 47.

The rapper, known to fans as MCA, passed away Friday morning (May 4) “after a long bout with cancer,” Global Grind reported.

“Adam was incredibly sweet and the most sensitive artist who I loved dearly. I was always inspired by his work. He will be missed by all of us,” Russell Simmons, co-founder of Beastie Boys label Def Jam, said in a statement.

Adam was treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node and underwent surgery and radiation therapy in 2009.

He is survived by his wife, Dechen Wangdu, and his daughter Tenzin Losel.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Adam‘s family during this difficult time.

Adam Yauch, Beastie Boys' MCA, Dies at 47

The founding member of the iconic hip-hop group was first diagnosed with cancer in 2009.

Adam "MCA" Yauch, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year with his pioneering rap trio Beastie Boys and founded the indie film company Oscilloscope Pictures, has died. He was 47.
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His longtime representatives confirmed the news Friday afternoon.

In 2009, Yauch was treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node and underwent surgery and radiation therapy, delaying the release of the group’s album Hot Sauce Committee and a tour that was to include a headlining slot at Lollapalooza. He announced the news on YouTube in July of that year. 

Yauch was unable to attend the Rock Hall induction ceremony April 14 in Cleveland. He said last year that he was “continuing treatment, staying optimistic and hoping to be cancer-free in the near future."

Beastie Boys exploded on the national scene in late 1986 with the top 10 single “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party).” The group’s debut album Licensed to Ill became the first rap disc to top the Billboard 200, eventually spending seven weeks at No. 1 and selling more than 9 million units in the U.S.

The trio released eight albums, six of them going platinum and four hitting No. 1, and sold a combined 22 million units stateside and more than 40 million worldwide.

Yauch, who dropped out of Bard College, and Michael “Mike D” Diamond co-founded Beastie Boys in 1981 as a hardcore punk act. The group, then a quartet including future Luscious Jackson drummer Kate Schellenbach, released an EP titled Polly Wog Stew. Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz joined soon after, and the group began gravitating to the burgeoning New York hip-hop scene.

By 1984, the group had begun a working relationship with Rick Rubin, then a student at NYU who would go on to found Def Jam Records with Simmons, who became the band’s manager. “We started doing rap in our shows,” Yauch told the Washington Post in 1987. “We’d put down the instruments and rap for half the show. Then we just decided it would be kind of exciting to be an all-rap band. And we met Russell Simmons, and he was like: ‘Oh, this is really cool. A white rap group’s really cool.’ And when we found out he was Run-DMC’s manager, we thought, ‘Wow!’ "

The Beasties caught their big break as the opening act on Madonna’s Virgin Tour of North America in 1985. “We f---ed with the audience,” Horovitz told New York magazine last year. “They hated us. Kids literally in tears, parents wanting to kill us. It was awesome.”

Released on Def Jam, License to Ill was released Nov. 15, 1986, to nearly instant success. The group’s first headlining tour started in clubs and grew to arenas, eventually hitting the U.K. and Japan. The Beasties split with Def Jam, signed with Capitol and released the sample-heavy Paul’s Boutique in 1989. The Dust Brothers-produced disc didn’t match the commercial heights of its predecessor, but critics swooned, and it continues to show up on various lists of all-time greatest albums.

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In 1992, the group founded the Grand Royal imprint, whose roster included Sean Lennon and Luscious Jackson, and a similarly named magazine. Beastie Boys continued to record and tour during the ’90s and 2000s. The trio’s most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

Under the pseudonym Nathaniel Hornblower, Yauch directed several of the Beasties’ videos including “Intergalactic” and “Ch-Check It Out” along with Awesome; I F---in’ Shot That! a feature-length concert film captured by fans at the band’s 2004 Madison Square Garden show. He also directed -- under his real name -- the 2008 documentary Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot, about high school basketball stars competing in the inaugural “Elite 24” tournament at Harlem’s Rucker Park.

In 2008, Yauch launched Oscilloscope Pictures, a film distribution and international sales division of his Oscilloscope Laboratories that includes a recording studio and production unit. Under Oscilloscope, Yauch distributed such successful films as Dark Days, Exit Through the Gift Shop and The Messenger (Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson).

Born in Brooklyn to a Catholic father and Jewish mother, Yauch became a practicing Buddhist. In 1994, he established the Milarepa Fund -- an organization dedicated to the promotion of nonviolence -- and became a leader of the movement to liberate Tibet from an oppressive half-century of Chinese occupation. He organized the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996.

In an 2004 interview with Rolling Stone, Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC described the first time his group toured with the Beasties in 1986, at a stop in the South where “it was just black people at those shows.”

“The first night was somewhere in Georgia, and we were thinking, ‘I hope people don't leave when they see them,’ ” he told the magazine, which ranked the Beasties No. 77 on its list of the greatest artists as all time. “But the crowd loved them, because they weren't trying to be black rappers. They rapped about shit they knew about: skateboarding, going to White Castle, angel dust and television. Real recognizes real.”

He is survived by wife Dechen Wangdu and their daughter, Losel.

Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch Dead at 47

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys' co-founder Adam Yauch has died at the age of 47, a rep for the MC confirms to Us Weekly.
"It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam 'MCA' Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer," his rep shared in a statement with Us Friday.

Best known by his stage name, MCA, the rapper was diagnosed with a tumor in his salivary gland in 2009. Eighteen months and a series of treatments later, Yauch seemed in good health once more.

On April 14, the Beastie Boys became the third rap group ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Yauch announced on the group's website that he would not be able to attend the ceremony.

Yauch founded the Beastie Boys alongside his friends Mike "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz in 1979. The legendary rap group's most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, was released last May.

The hip hop icon is survived by his wife, Dechen Wangdu and their daughter, Tenzin.

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys Dies at 47

Adam Yauch, a founding member of the hip-hop group Beastie Boys, died Friday in New York after a nearly three-year battle with cancer. He was 47.

Known by his stage name MCA, Yauch was inducted just last month into the Rock and Hall of Fame but was too ill to join bandmates Mike 'Mike D' Diamond and Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz at the ceremony.

Among a flood of music stars sending their tributes was Justin Timberlake, who Tweeted: "Crushed to hear the news of Adam Yauch's passing. A true pioneer of art."

Reverend Run from Run-D.M.C. added, "I'm devastated. Praying for Adam Yauch's family from the legendary Beastie Boys. You'll be missed!"

The Brooklyn-born Yauch taught himself to play the bass guitar and, while in high school, formed the Beastie Boys.

Starting out as a punk group, the band transitioned to hip-hop and their first album Licensed to Ill, with the youth anthem "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)," became a blockbuster seller.

The Beastie Boys went on to sell more than 40 million albums and have gone down as trailblazers in rap music. Licensed to Ill became the first hip-hop album to top the Billboard 200.

"Adam was incredibly sweet and the most sensitive artist who I loved dearly," says producer Russell Simmons, a mentor and the band's early manager. "I was always inspired by his work. He will be missed by all of us."

Adam Yauch and his daughter

Polaris

A Director and Philanthropist

Yauch also directed many of the Beastie Boys music videos, including the band's 2006 concert film Awesome; I F----- Shot That!.

He was also a founding member of both the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits and the film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories.

In 2009, he announced that a cancerous tumor was discovered in his left salivary gland. At the time, the band postponed the release of their new album.

Although his cancer was caught early and described as "very treatable," Yauch revealed in January 2011 that he had still not fully recovered.

"While I'm grateful for all the positive energy people are sending my way, reports of my being totally cancer free are exaggerated," Yauch said in a statement at the time, according to Rolling Stone. "I'm continuing treatment, staying optimistic and hoping to be cancer free in the near future."

Yauch is survived by his wife, Dechen Wangdu, and 14-year-old daughter, Tenzin Losel Yauch.

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Adam Yauch dead: Legendary Beastie Boys rapper dies at 47 after struggle with cancer

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys aka MCA attends the premiere of 'The Social Network' during the 48th New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on September 24, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Adam Yauch, the gravelly voiced Beastie Boys rapper and the most conscientious member of the seminal hip-hop group, has died. He was 47.

Yauch's representatives confirmed that the rapper died Friday morning in New York after a nearly three-year battle with cancer.

Also known as MCA, Yauch was diagnosed with a cancerous salivary gland in 2009. At the time, Yauch expressed hope it was "very treatable," but his illness caused the group to cancel shows and delayed the release of their 2011 album, "Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2."

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He hadn't performed in public since 2009 and was absent when the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month.

"Adam Yauch was a pioneer who broke ground with his music and introduced hip-hop to a wider audience," said Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Brooklyn-born Yauch created the Beastie Boys with high school friend Michael "Mike D" Diamond. Originally conceived as a hardcore punk group, it became a hip-hop trio soon after Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz joined. They released their chart-topping debut "Licensed to Ill" in 1986, a raucous album led by the anthem "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)".

Russell Simmons, whose Def Jam label released "Licensed to Ill," said on his website: "Adam was incredibly sweet and the most sensitive artist, who I loved dearly. I was always inspired by his work."

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In the seven studio albums that followed, the Beastie Boys expanded considerably and grew more musically ambitious. Their follow-up, 1989's "Paul's Boutique," ended any suggestion that the group was a one-hit wonder. Extensive in its sampling and sonically layered, the album was ranked the 156th greatest album ever by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.

The Beastie Boys would later take up their own instruments -- a rarity in hip-hop -- on the album "Check Your Head" and subsequent releases.

The trio of white Jewish kids established themselves as one of the most respected groups in hip-hop at a time when white rappers were few.

Introducing the group at the Rock Hall, Public Enemy rapper Chuck D said the Beastie Boys "broke the mold."

"The Beastie Boys are indeed three bad brothers who made history," Chuck D said. "They brought a whole new look to rap and hip-hop. They proved that rap could come from any street -- not just a few."

Yauch also went under the pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower when working as a filmmaker. He directed numerous videos for the group, as well as the 2006 concert film "Awesome: I F----- Shot That!" He also co-founded the film distribution company Osciolloscope Laboratories, named after his New York studio.

Yauch is survived by his wife, Dechen Wangdu, and his daughter, Tenzin Losel Yauch.

RIP Adam Yauch

Adam Yauch directed the Beastie Boys videos under the name Nathaniel Hörnblower and ran movie production and distribution company Oscilloscope . He was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and it looks like he finally lost the battle.

"I wanna say a little something that's long overdue, this disrespect to women has got to be through, to all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends, I wanna offer my love and respect to the end."

Sure Shot - Beastie Boys

Adam Yauch - thank you for the music and crazy videos.
Rest in peace.

Pitchfork has a good obituary - read it.

Adam Yauch