Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

I was promised a recession.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The willow is too close to the house.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

You are here: Home / Absent Friends / RIP / RIP Adam Yauch

RIP Adam Yauch

by | 96 Comments

This post is in: 

Damnit:

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 48, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009. The rapper was diagnosed in 2009 after discovering a tumor in his salivary gland.

One of my favorite all time bands.

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  1. 1.

    Punchy

    I just got a text about this 15 secs ago. Im so numb I cant walk. Ready to puke.

  2. 2.

    decitect

    fought for his right to party. goin’ to rap & scratch with the big guy now. r.i.p.

  7. 7.

    pragmatism

    one of my all time faves as well. my first concert back in 1986 was RUN DMC with Beastie Boys opening. the B-Boys are interesting because they really evolved over time as artists and people. they went from misogynistic lyrics and girls dancing in cages in live show to gettting in a fight backstage with The Prodigy over the song “Smack My Bitch Up”. MCA did a lot with Tibetan causes.

  11. 11.

    Martin

    Remember first hearing them on the radio in NY back in what, 85 or so. I was still in HS, at least. I think it was ‘She’s On It’. One of the stations had a time slot late at night when they’d play singles from up-and-coming groups and local talent. First heard TMGB around that same time as well. Got hooked on both.

    See ya MCA.

  12. 12.

    Felinious Wench

    Man…

    One of my favorites too. License to Ill remains one of those touchstone albums for me. One with so many associated memories that listening to it takes you right back to that time and those moments.

    RIP, MCA. Will hoist a beer or 3 in your honor tonight.

  14. 14.

    Bizono

    Fuck you, cancer.

    Incredibly sad news. Adam wasn’t just a great artist, he was a very good human being.

  15. 15.

    Bizono

    Fuck you, cancer.

    Incredibly sad news. Adam wasn’t just a great artist, he was a very good human being.

  18. 18.

    Paula

    Fuck this shitttt …

    I knew something was really wrong when he didn’t show up w/ the rest of the Beasties to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

  20. 20.

    Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)

    MCA has passed the mic.

    This made me so much sadder than I would have expected. Beastie Boys was my first ever concert back when I was 14. Damn good show.

  24. 24.

    gbear

    @Concerned Citizen:

    Paul’s Boutique is the best album ever.

    And an album that can never be duplicated. It would cost a bazillion dollars now to secure the rights to use all the samples that they used on that record. it was a groundbreaking album for it’s imaginative use of samples.

  25. 25.

    Doc Sportello

    We got a party on the left, a party on the right
    We gonna party for the motherfucking right to fight
    Make some noise if you’re with me
    Make some noise if you’re with me

  27. 27.

    blueintheface

    Ted Nugent, Pat Boone, Hank Williams Jr. Still here.

    MCA gone way too soon.

    There really isn’t any justice in this world.

  28. 28.

    Mike Lamb

    This sucks. Licensed to Ill was one of the first tapes I ever bought. Paul Revere was the first song where I memorized all the lyrics (I can still sing most of it 25-30 years later). Not sure they put out a bad album. In Sound from Way Out was awesome as well.

  33. 33.

    cthulhu

    For a band that I originally wrote off as lame party rap-rock, they eventually endeared themselves to me and I ended up with most of their catalog in my collection. I think the last time I saw them was at Coachella.

    Not news to start off a weekend…

  35. 35.

    gaz

    @Mike Lamb: I didn’t care for their early punk so much. Mostly I guess because of the awful production quality and I was too young to have gone to a live show of theirs back in the early 80’s (I was still toddly)

    License To Ill was when I fell in love. As I grew older I found I didn’t care for the rank misogyny of “Girls”, etc and some of the lyrics were patently juvenile – but they grew with me. I can respect that. They hit their stride and became one of the most influential amazing east coast hip hop groups ever. I’ll miss MCA like I miss Douglas Adams and Miles Davis. As deeply as I can for someone whom I’ve never met. We’ve suffered a terrible loss Adam Yauch’s death.

  39. 39.

    Evolving Deep Southerner

    Two words: Paul’s Boutique.

    48 is too damn young, but may we all last that long in our season.

  40. 40.

    Violet

    How sad. RIP, MCA. It sounds like he kept his cancer and treatment under wraps, or is that just the way it was phrased in the article?

  41. 41.

    proverbialleadballoon

    mca was a lot more than just a great musician. he was the soul behind the tibetan freedom concerts and started oscilloscope laboratories, which has released a bunch of movies, including dear zachary, exit through the gift shop, and the messenger. the force was strong with this one.

  47. 47.

    Brian R.

    One of the few bands I saw repeatedly and was always blown away. They never got old.

  49. 49.

    geg6

    @Paula:

    I wondered about that, too. Now we know. Very sad. They weren’t a touchstone for me (I’m too old and too much of a punk), but they were the first rap group that I actually listened to and they made me finally start to understand the appeal of the genre. I’m sure Gen-Xers feel about MCA’s death the same way I felt the day Joe Strummer died.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Dead at 48.

    Yet Dick Cheney still lives.

    There is no fucking justice.

  51. 51.

    Froley

    That sucks. “Licensed to Ill” and “Raising Hell” were pretty much all I listened to in ’86/’87 — that music made 8th grade a little more tolerable. (This fall will be the 10th anniversary of Jam Master Jay’s murder.)

  54. 54.

    Hawerchuk

    Fucking terrible news. I couldn’t really see them when I was young (lived in the middle of nowhere in Canada) but since I moved to the US, I saw them a couple of times – Bill Graham and Berkeley Greek. Stellar shows, though they had already slowed down by then…It’s too cold for women to go topless in the Bay Area usually, but the B-Boys brought that out regardless.

  55. 55.

    Mike E

    Caught ’em at LolliFest in Charlotte where a mini riot broke out during their set. Bum rush the mic!

    They were their generation’s equivalent to the Fabs. RIP MCA

  56. 56.

    geg6

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Dead at 48.
    __
    Yet Dick Cheney still lives.
    __
    There is no fucking justice.

    Well, they do say that the good die young. When I think of that bastard Cheney still being alive and that scarce donated organs are being wasted on such a waste of humanity, I comfort myself with the thought that he must be in great physical pain all the time. And how he keeps clinging to that painful horrid life of his with all his might. Because he is a believer (if not a religious nut, like the rest of his party), deep down he knows what’s going to happen to him when he dies. As I am not a believer, I revel in every second of pain that dogs him until he wheezes his last breath.

  58. 58.

    Cris (without an H)

    @Paula: I knew something was really wrong when he didn’t show up w/ the rest of the Beasties to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

    Axl Rose better have a good story, MCA has raised the bar on excused absences

  60. 60.

    pragmatism

    Beings Entering Anarchistic States Towards Internal Excellence
    backronyms are funny.

  62. 62.

    FlipYrWhig

    When it hit, either sophomore or junior year, Licensed to Ill totally transformed my heavily Jewish, almost entirely white high school. I vividly remember a friend getting suspended for wearing a Beasties T-shirt with the slogan “Get Off My Dick.”. The Beasties and David Letterman had a lot to do with why all my best friends were obnoxious and acerbic and at least a bit askew. My Facebook is blowing up with sorrow.

  63. 63.

    Raven

    Way after my time but he meant a lot to a lot of people here so he must have been pretty good. The fact no one has bashed him yet must mean something.

  64. 64.

    Johnny Coelacanth

    I was on the Beastie Boys e-mail list back when the cancer was first diagnosed. MCA didn’t want to make a big deal out of it or tell anybody; I think it was Mike who forced him to go public with it at all. Check Your Head and Hello Nasty bookended the ’90s for me. Creative people the same age as me aren’t supposed to be dying today. Goddamnit, indeed.

  65. 65.

    Death Panel Truck

    @gbear:

    Pete Townshend

    Who wrote that he hoped he’d die before he got old.

    My mother died of breast cancer at 48. I was 19, and it ripped my heart out.

  70. 70.

    Death Panel Truck

    @Raven: I’m 49. I wasn’t into the Beastie Boys, but I’m not about to bash them. I do think however that It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back is truly the best hip-hop album ever recorded. Others disagree. It’s a matter of opinion.

  72. 72.

    Mike E

    @Raven: Like the Rolling Stones, they were the flag-bearers for their genre, and were appreciated by their peers for their sheer enthusiasm alone.

  73. 73.

    Paula

    @Raven:

    I keep expecting some a-hole to chirp about the Beasties being watered-down parody-rap for suburban kids who were too afraid to the real thing. Myself included, until I actually started to listen to them.

    Paul’s Boutique is getting more than enough love, so … CHECK YOUR HEAD. Bonus points for Hello Nasty. A lot of people dismissed the latter as a sign that the trio were getting old, but it really holds up.

  75. 75.

    Kittehs to the rescue

    This is them from a quarter of a century ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5UaUqH19-Y

    Man, it’s hard to believe that 1/3 of Run-DMC and 1/3 of Beastie Boys — two bands who really got me into rap — aren’t here anymore. And it’s not like I’m that old.

    I had so hoped to see the Beasties once more on a festival stage, but when they announced MCA wasn’t gonna be at the R&R HOF I already suspected that we might be hearing some bad news this year, but boy… this hit me in the gut.

  76. 76.

    burnspbesq

    @Concerned Citizen:

    Paul’s Boutique is the best album ever.

    Today is not the day for that conversation, so I’ll let that go.

    The beasties are completely not my thing (couldn’t possibly be less my thing), but it’s a sad day when any creative person checks out too soon.

  77. 77.

    Mattminus

    I’ve never understood the Beastie Boys love. It’s as if everyone started taking Weird Al really seriously after he released “In 3-D”.

  80. 80.

    SatanicPanic

    @Paula:

    the Beasties being watered-down parody-rap for suburban kids who were too afraid to the real thing.

    I’ll be that a-hole! Actually, I think License to Ill is pretty clever for what it was meant by the record execs to be (see above). And they grew way beyond what people were expecting them to. Anyway who cares? We’re not in high school anymore.

  81. 81.

    Paula

    @Death Panel Truck:

    I doubt the Beasties would disagree with you … I would say, though, that because of their background (the fact that they were originally punks, the fact that they are white, the fact they are Jewish kids from Brooklyn) means that a comparison to Public Enemy is really apples to oranges.

    Rap is heavily rooted in time and material context. Although the basic formula is similar (graffiti, dj-ing, b-boying, emceeing), the art form manifests itself in a lot of different ways. Public Enemy took to heart the role of rap in the inner city and their music reflected rap’s political insurgency at the time. Not that being a group of white rappers was any less political, but the Beasties took the self-consciousness that came from that and created a musical persona that was more frat boy braggadocio-oriented, but also willing to use some of the dirtier, louder, more abrasive elements of punk vocals and instrumentation (“Brass Monkey”, “Fight for your right”, “Sabotage” being the prime examples). They expanded the palette of hip hop sounds, but I think they also made highly visible (but maybe not originated) the links between rap and punk as political youth music.

  83. 83.

    Citizen_X

    I got Paul’s Boutique. On vinyl. Triple fucking gatefold sleeve. To this day, it makes people swoon. (Yes, I’m bragging.)

    MCA RIP.

  84. 84.

    Ned Ludd

    @Arm The Homeless:
    I do. They were a hardcore punk band.

    In the mid-90’s, my friend’s band was booked to a local gig with an anonymous “extra special guest.” It turned out to be a band called Quasar, which was really the Beastie Boys with a backup band playing an all-hardcore set– some of their old originals plus a bunch of covers. Absolutely amazing show.

  86. 86.

    Cacti

    RIP to MCA.

    Check Your Head, Ill Communication, and Hello Nasty were all part of the soundtrack of my high school and college years.

    And 47 is way too damn young to die.

  87. 87.

    SectarianSofa

    Bummer. My wife emailed me this news in the middle of the day.
    I listened to more Public Enemy than Beastie Boys, but they kept getting more interesting, and I listened to them more and more….
    Way too young; couldn’t have been done.

  89. 89.

    Djur

    Hot Sauce Committee, pt. 2 was a hell of a way to go out. A quarter-century of making people shake their rumps is a legacy most people would kill for.

    Fuck cancer.

  91. 91.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    Loved the music, HATED the voices, was ambivalent on the rap-style, so they were never really my thing. But they were incredibly creative and original so they were one of those bands I didn’t love but I definitely respected. 47 is way too young. Sorry to hear it.

  94. 94.

    calliope jane

    Damn, damn, damn. I was in the car today and one station kept playing their songs and I just thought “awesome” and didn’t even think what it might mean.

    Damn it. He did so many impressive things and apparently he’s who I thank for that year(sss….) we were obsessed with the Intergalactic vid.

  95. 95.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    @Djur- Yes, I heard the first one, and I really dug it. Great grooves. Great musicianship. And I give them major props for having the balls to do something risky like that.

  96. 96.

    keestadoll

    Beastie Boys: pretty much the soundtrack to every [girl stumbles out of southern California backyard kegger] scene I ever starred in. RIP.

Comments are closed.