Beastie girl

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.