MCA, far right, progressed from party boy to peace activist.

You cannot say enough about pioneering rap group The Beastie Boys.  Three Jewish kids from New York named Mike D, Ad Rock, and MCA took punk rock and metal and fused it with the growing hip-hop sound and thus straddled two genres.  They rapped over beats from the Dust Brothers and they rapped over music they played live with traditional rock instruments.  They combined macho bravado with comedy and science fiction nerdery, and no one was more important to their sound than the gruff, tough MCA, AKA Adam Yauch, who has lost his battle with cancer.  Adam Yauch was 47.

However, MCA was important for far more than his rapping; he was also an activist and a film producer.  He was one of the founders of arthouse distributor Oscilloscope Pictures and–when he wasn’t busy selling 40 million albums, winning 3 Grammy awards, getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and putting out 8 iconic albums–was one of the organizers of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, a series of all-star benefit concerts to benefit Tibet and Tibetan independence.

Tags: mca, beastie boys, adam yauch, adam ‘mca’ yauch, adam yauch dead, mca dead, beastie boys mca dead, adam yauch dead at 47, cancer, music, rapping, hip-hop, mca beastie boys died, oscilloscope pictures, tibetan freedom concerts, rock and roll hall of fame

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