MCA: More than a Beastie Boy
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News broke that Adam Yauch aka MCA of the Beastie Boys lost his three year battle with cancer on Friday May 4th. And while he did become famous for being a Beastie Boy Yauch was much more than just a rapper. In 2009 Yauch announced he was going to undergo treatment for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node. Reports in the following years were promising but a sign things were not well was when he was not able to attend the Beastie Boys induction into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame last month.
Adam Yauch was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1964 to Frances and Noel Yauch. In high school Yauch taught himself to play the bass guitar. For his 17th birthday he decided to form a band. He helped to form the Beastie Boys with John Berry, Kate Schellenbach, and Michael Diamond. They played their first show, while still a hardcore punk band in the vein of Reagan Youth, on his 17th birthday.
By the time Yauch turned 22 the Beastie Boys, now a hip hop trio released their first album Licensed to Ill. The Beastie Boys went on to release 7 more studio albums and a variety of other works. They won three Grammy Awards and three MTV Music Awards.
But as referenced above Yauch was much more than a Beastie Boy. Yauch was a practicing Buddhist and involved in the Tibetan Independence Movement. He also created the Milarepa Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness and activism regarding the injustices perpetrated on native Tibetans by Chinese occupational government and military forces. And he was instrumental in organizing several benefit concerts to support the cause, including the Tibetan Freedom Concert.
In addition to his Beastie Boy and Tibetan freedom work Adam was a husband and father. His wife Dechen Wangdu is an American-born activist of Tibetan descent. She has devoted her entire life to the cause of Tibetan liberation from China. Together they had a daughter Tenzin Losel who is now 14 years old.
So as we came to love him for his music we also loved him for his other passions. RIP MCA(Adam Yauch).
This is a guest post written by Monkeysuit of thegreatmonkeysuit.com.
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