ADAM YAUCH (1964-2012)

The Bodhisattva Path Is One Of Power And Strength

A Strength From Within To Go The Length

Seeing Others As Important As Myself

I Strive For A Happiness Of Mental Wealth

With The Interconnectedness That We Share As One

Every Action That We Take Affects Everyone

So In Deciding For What A Situation Calls

There Is A Path For The Good For All

I Try To Make My Every Action For That Highest Good

With The Altruistic Wish To Achive Buddhahood

So I Pledge Here Before Everyone Who's Listening

To Try To Make My Every Action For The Good Of All Beings

For The Rest Of My Lifetimes And Even Beyond

I Vow To Do My Best To Do No Harm

And In Times Of Doubt I Can Think On The Dharma

And The Enlightened Ones Who've Graduated Samsara

A tribute to Adam Yauch aka MCA.

STRICTLY CASSETTE MCA TRIBUTE BY:  buttonpusha

In 1987 my mum bought me two records that would change my musical landscape forever. Those records were 'Licensed To Ill and Raising Hell."  I hadn't heard anything like them before.  They combined the familiar rock sounds my little brain knew but added this new thing, this new style that I didn't fully understand.  It was like a new language, it was talking but not the talking my mum and friends did. This was my first introduction to rapping.  I was hooked from the moment I heard "Rhymin' & stealin" till the last seconds of "Time to get ill."  I'm sitting here now typing this and the memories are flooding back.  It was a time when the music they made took me away from the problems between my parents.  I listened to the tape of the album my mum made me (record player was downstairs) and would disappear in to my Beastie Boys world. It was my escape. Hip Hop has always been my escape to be honest. I was a fan from that moment in 87 till this very day.  MCA and the Beasties opened up a world of music to me from all genres that I may have never experienced without them paving the way.  Each album pushed in different directions and is clear that what they saw and did influenced them greatly.  If it hadn't been for MCA I wouldn't have known what Buddhism is.  Thats the true power of music.

In 2004 I spent 2 months in Canada.  At the time "To the five Boroughs" had been released and the Beasties were in Toronto for the Much Music awards.  They had closed off the street next to the MM studio.  We saw the Beasties soundcheck & preform.  It was during the performance that I was up the front and stuck my hand out to find it being slapped my MCA.  It was a mere second in time.  A fleeting moment but to me it meant the world.  It was a brief connection but one with a hero of mine.  Thats a memory that will never leave me.  I'm smiling thinking about it now.

As the earth spins into brand new day


I see the light on the horizons's not fading away


Gonna shine from within like a bright white sun


No need to hide and no place to run


Got the vibrations of the music


Bringing light to your mind


So you can move and groove


And feel the beat of the time


Sense the power in the air as it starts to move


You get a real good feeling that you just can't lose



Contemplation time, intuition time


Evolution time, resolution time



Free your mind it's time for good times


And let yourself move it's a time to shine


Spread your wings in the sky, feelin' good inside


Breaking fool with no need to hide


I got the music cuttin' throught me


Takin' control of my soul


I can't hold back I've got to let go



Stand together people come together now


It's about time we've got to get together y'all

It's with a sadness that I type today.  The world lost a great musician and human being yesterday at such a young age.  I wanted to write more but I find that I can't.  Having lost loved ones to cancer I can understand the pain that his family and friends are going through.  The pain does turn in to happiness.  Happiness in the remembering of the person and the spirit they possessed.  Adam Yauch will live on in the music and the memories that we have as fans.  Lets share those memories.  The physical maybe be gone but the spirit of what he stood for never dies.  May he rest in peace.