My husband Peter manages rock bands, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio last month. I went with him to the ceremony. Other bands I’d known and loved as a teenager were being inducted, too, among them Guns N’ Roses and the Beastie Boys. Two of the three-man rap band — Ad-Rock (Adam Horowitz) and Mike D (Michael Diamond) — were there to accept their awards. But they wouldn’t go on stage without Adam Yauch. That day, Yauch had entered hospital for the last time.
When he died, the international media overflowed with grief. Yauch made television news bulletins in Britain and the front page of the New York Times; he was a worldwide ‘trending topic’ on Twitter for more than a day. Musicians, rappers, actors, directors spoke of their loss. Generation X, now running newspapers, civil servants, even MPs, put their sorrow on the record. It was some contrast with the state of affairs in 1987, when the Beastie Boys toured the UK, and MPs tried to ban them.
Pop stars die most weeks. What was so significant about Yauch? We can go through the tropes of his life; frat-boy rapper turned Buddhist activist, sensitive director, filmmaker. The Beastie Boys released the party rap classic Licensed to Ill in 1986. Produced by the great Rick Rubin, with Kerry King from Slayer on the guitar, it sold more than nine million records. It was the first hip-hop album to top the charts; three white Jewish boys from New York had become the unlikely kings of rap. They followed it up three years later with Paul’s Boutique, a 180-degree artistic pivot. Now liberal and left-wing but still awesome, the Beasties refused to repeat the sort of success they were known for.
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