Play video
Beastie Boys co-founder Adam Yauch who began his career fighting for his right to party, but grew into a man more concerned about his right to fight lost his final battle Friday.
The 47-year-old vocalist known to fans as MCA died nearly three years after being diagnosed with a cancerous tumour on his salivary gland.
He had undergone surgery and radiation.
One of our heroes, Adam Yauch aka MCA of the Beastie Boys has passed this morning after a long bout with cancer, read a posting on a website run by Def Jam Records co-founder Russell Simmons, who gave the Beasties their first deal. Our prayers go out to the family of Adam and the entire Beastie Boys crew.
Yauchs illness had curtailed the groups activities in recent years, keeping them off the road and delaying the release of their 2011 album Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2. He was also absent when Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April in celebration of their groundbreaking and influential career.
The group Yauch, Michael (Mike D) Diamond and Adam (Ad-Rock) Horovitz formed in Brooklyn in the late 70s, morphing from a punk band into a raucous rap-rock outfit. Teaming with student and aspiring producer Rick Rubin, they burst onto the mainstream with their 1986 album Licensed to Ill, built from hedonistic anthems like (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right to Party, Brass Monkey and No Sleep Till Brooklyn.
But if you thought they just were a joke band, the joke was on you.
The Beasties quickly evolved into one of the most innovative and important groups in music, helping to push rap into the mainstream and the suburbs. They took sampling to new heights with the peerless and flawless 1989 CD Pauls Boutique; they returned to their punky instrumental roots (with Yauch on bass) for 1992s Check Your Head; and they raised the bar for video with clips for hits like Shake Your Rump, Hey Ladies and Sabotage. Their sound and style were fast, funky, fun and frenetic, with the three rhymers constantly and nimbly trading lines (and one-liners) at a feverish clip. The gravelly voiced Yauch often seen sporting shades and a goatee was the calm at the centre of the storm, delivering his lines with a laid-back flow that complemented and contrasted his bandmates nasal intensity.
Similarly, Yauch also seemed the most grounded and serious member of the trio. A practising Buddhist who turned to activism, he helped organize a series of Tibetan Freedom Concerts in the 90s, and co- founded the Milarepa Fund to help raise money for the regions independence. He also was involved in film, directing many of the Boys videos under the handle Nathaniel Hornblower (occasionally making cameos in a wig and moustache), and forming a company called Oscilloscope Laboratories that distributed features and documentaries, including We Need to Talk About Kevin and the Oscar-nominated Banksy doc Exit Through the Gift Shop.
He leaves behind a wife and daughter.
Read JAM's 2006 interview with Yauch and the rest of the Beastie Boys here.
Which Beastie Boys album is your favourite?darryl.sterdan@sunmedia.ca
@darryl_sterdan
blogs.canoe.ca/ent
facebook.com/darryl.sterdan
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar