Adam Yauch aka MCA, Penggawa Beastie Boys Wafat

Semasa hidupnya, Yauch juga dikenal sebagai aktivis gerakan kemerdekaan Tibet.

Dunia musik kembali kehilangan sosok penting. Rapper asal Amerika Serikat Adam Yauch tutup usia pada usia 47 tahun di New York, Jumat (4/5) waktu setempat. 

Yauch yang memiliki nama panggung MCA adalah anggota dan pendiri grup hip-hop The Beastie Boys. Yauch meninggal tepat sepekan setelah Beastie Boys dimasukan ke dalam Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, yang merupakan pertama bagi grup hip-hop kulit putih mendapat kehormatan ini.

Yauch sendiri sudah tiga tahun berjuang melawan penyakit kanker. Semasa hidupnya, Yauch juga dikenal sebagai aktivis gerakan kemerdekaan Tibet.

"Dengan rasa sedih yang mendalam, kami memberi konfirmasi bahwa musisi, rapper, aktivis, dan sutradara Adam 'MCA' Yauch meninggal dunia di kota asalnya Ney York setelah tiga tahun melawan kanker," demikian pernyataan dari juru bicara grup.

Di kancah musik, The Beastie Boys, yang terdiri dari MCA, Mike D, dan Adrock, sangat fenomenal. Musiknya yang mengusung hip-hop, rap rock, hardcore punk, dan alternative hip-hop mampu mencuri perhatian publik. Tidak kurang dari 40 juta kopi rekaman yang sudah terjual sejak debut 1986. Mereka juga meraih 2 penghargaan Grammy pada 1998.

Yauch wafat meninggalkan istrinya, Dechen, dan anak perempuannya, Tenzin Losel.

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Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch hip-hop's unexpected loss

The first sign of trouble came in the summer of 2009. Slated for a busy season of promotion for the then forthcoming album, "Hot Sauce Committee Part 1," the Beastie Boys abruptly withdrew as headliners from the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco, canceled all their other tour dates and indefinitely pushed back the release date of the record.
The reason? The New York rap trio's founding member Adam "MCA" Yauch was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in a salivary gland.
"I just need to take a little time to get this in check, and then we'll release the record and play some shows," Yauch said in a recorded video statement placed on the band's website.
His casual tone and innate sense of optimism made it feel like everything would be fine. In fact, the Beastie Boys' label, EMI, followed it up with an announcement that assured fans that the cancer was local and treatable with immediate surgery. Yauch's vocal cords would not be affected. He was expected to make a full recovery.
"I apologize to everybody, for anyone who's made plans or was psyched to come to these shows that are coming up," Yauch said. "We'll be back doing this soon."
It seemed impossible that any of the Beastie Boys - a band that seemed so full of life from the moment it gate-crashed MTV with its party-starting first single "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)" - would ever have to deal with life-threatening illness.
Throughout a career that saw them selling more than 40 million records, releasing four No. 1 albums and picking up three Grammys, the group - which also included Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond - never lost its exuberance or love for its work.
When the Beastie Boys headlined at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in 2004 - its members well into middle age - they wore electric green tracksuits and leaped around the stage like huge goofballs, reviving classics such as "Brass Monkey."

Sense of enlightenment

The Beastie Boys never got around to releasing "Hot Sauce Committee Part 1," but after a period out of the spotlight, the group put out its eighth studio album, "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two," last year. It was heralded as a return-to-form for its gut-busting beats and sharp rhymes.
Yauch, a practicing Buddhist, had previously e-mailed the Beastie Boys' official fan list that he was taking Tibetan medicine following the removal of his tumor and switched to a vegan diet. He added, "I'm feeling healthy, strong and hopeful that I've beaten this thing, but of course time will tell."
His greatest contribution to the rowdy rap trio - whose biggest hits included "Shake Your Rump" and "Hey Ladies" - was a sense of enlightenment. The gruff-voiced Yauch seemed almost immediately apologetic for the misogyny that ran rampant on the Beastie Boys' first album, "Licensed To Ill," and its accompanying tour that featured girls in go-go cages and a giant inflatable penis. He even went on to chastise other artists for similar infractions.
"I didn't realize how much harm I was doing back then, and I think a lot of rap artists probably don't realize it now," Yauch said.
After visiting Nepal and hearing the Dalai Lama speak in Arizona, he founded the Milarepa Fund, which organized the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in Golden Gate Park in 1996. The event brought together artists like Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt and Foo Fighters and raised $800,000 to support the cause of Tibetan independence.
He married Dechen Wangdu, and in 1998 they had a daughter, Tenzin Losel.

Directing music videos

Even as he took on the weight of the world, he never lost the sense of humor or adventure that made the Beastie Boys stand out in the hip-hop world. He directed music videos for the group under the pseudonym "Nathanial Hörnblowér."
He produced a crowd-sourced concert film, "Awesome; I F-' Shot That!" His verses in the band's songs were among the most memorable: "I've got more rhymes than I've got gray hairs, and that's a lot because I've got my share."
When Yauch didn't make the induction ceremony for the Beastie Boys at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month it was pretty clear that his recovery wasn't going as expected. But few outside his inner circle would have guessed the end would come so quickly.
He sent a message to the party, which his band mates read from the podium. It read, in part: "I'd like to dedicate this award to my brothers Adam and Mike who have walked the globe with me. To anyone who has been touched by our band, who our music has meant something to, this induction is as much ours as it is yours."
The loss of "MCA" is ours as well.

10 essential songs by the Beastie Boys

"Egg Raid on Mojo"
"(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)"
"No Sleep Til Brooklyn"
"Hey Ladies"
"Shake Your Rump"
"Gratitude"
"So Whatcha Want"
"Sabotage"
"Intergalactic"
"Body Movin'"

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Beastie Boys Co-Founder Adam Yauch Dead at 47

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 47, 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.
"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," reads an official statement from the Beastie Boys. "He was 47 years old."
Yauch sat out the Beastie Boys' induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, and his treatments delayed the release of the group's most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2. The Beastie Boys had not performed live since the summer of 2009, and Yauch's illness prevented the group from appearing in music videos for Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2.
Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz in 1979. The band started off as a hardcore punk group, but soon began experimenting with hip-hop. The band broke huge with their first proper album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986; it was the biggest-selling rap album of the decade and the first to reach Number One on the Billboard chart. Further albums Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication cemented the Beasties as a true superstar act.
In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet. A founder of the Milarepa Fund, Yauch was instrumental in the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park 1996, which drew 100,000 people – the largest U.S. benefit concert since 1985's Live Aid. After 9/11, Yauch and the Beastie Boys organized New Yorkers Against Violence, a concert benefit for some of the victims least likely to receive help from elsewhere.
Yauch also directed many of the Beastie Boys' music videos under the pseudonym Nathaniel Hornblower. In 2002, he launched the film production company Oscilloscope Laboratories. As a filmmaker, he directed the 2006 Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! and the 2008 basketball  documentary Gunnin' for That #1 Spot, and his production company released the acclaimed Banksy movie Exit Through the Gift Shop.

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Rapper Beastie Boys Adam Yauch meninggal dunia

Sejumlah musisi menyampaikan belasungkawa atas kematian Rapper Beastie Boys, Adam Yauch.

Adam Yauch yang juga dikenal sebagai aktivis Tibet ini meninggal dunia di usia 47 tahun karena menderita kanker kelenjar ludah.
Setelah divonis menderita kanker pada tahun 2009 Yauch sempat menjalani operasi dan terapi radiasi dan pada tahun 2011 pernah muncul kabar bahwa dia telah dinyatakan bebas kanker, meski akhirnya kabar itu dibantah.
Dengan nama beken MCA, dia ikut bergabung dalam Beastie Boys dan sukses menjual 40 juta album di dunia bersama Mike D dan Ad Roc.
Sejumlah musisi seperti De La Soul, Ice T, Joe Satriani dan Common langsung mengucapkan belasungkawa melalui situs mikroblog Twitter ketika kabar kematian Yauch menyebar.
Rapper Biz Markie, yang berkolaborasi dengan Beastie Boys di album Ill Communication, menulis: ''Saudaraku, kamu akan sangat dirindukan. Hati saya sangat sedih.''
Moby juga menulis: ''Saya sangat, sangat sedih mendengar Adam Yauch meninggal. Dia orang yang menyenangkan, dermawan, luar biasa dan inspiratif dan seorang teman.''
Sementara bintang pop Justin Timberlake mengaku ''terpukul'' dengan berita duka tersebut, sedangkan basis Nirvana Krist Novoselic mengucapkan terimakasih untuk Yauch karena menjadi inspirasi dalam musik.
Senator New York Chuck Schumeralso juga mengucapkan belasungkawa di Twitter dengan menulis: ''Lahir dan besar di Brooklyn, Amerika Serikat, mereka memanggilnya Adam yauch, tetapi dia adalah M.C.A. RIP Adam."

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