Does Doc Zeus not bleed?
I admire Adam Yauch. As a diehard hip hop fan and a child of the 1990s, that might seem exceedingly obvious to say. But beyond the superficial of simply “liking” his music, Adam Yauch was an extraordinary human being. Beyond his accomplishments in music and film, his character was of the highest caliber and it’s a tragedy beyond writing a few eulogistic words that he was ripped away from the rest of us at the sickeningly young age of 47. He deserved better. Far better.
For a group that started as socially conscious as spilled bong water in a fraternity basement, the Beastie Boys grew up. Over the years, they evolved into something beyond the frat rap idiots whose biggest concern was the eternal, existential fight against parental oppression. They became tireless human rights activists and respected humanitarians willing to be vulnerable in public and speak truth to power when the time called for it. They spoke out famously against the sexual violence that occurred at Woodstock ’99 at MTV’s Video Music Awards in 1999. The group spoke prophetically against the United States government’s military aggression in the Middle East and the growing climate of racism against Muslims and Arabic people at time when American citizens were getting blacklisted for publicly expressing their views on the matter.
