My Name’s Yauch and I’m Throwing the Yolk

 

23 years ago today, Paul’s Boutique kicked off one of the biggest transformations in any hip hop group’s career. Since we are still officially in The Year of Mourning MCA, we must commemorate the occasion.

 

 

 

2 Idiots Draft: The Beastie Boys Fantasy Draft

Now that we’ve come to grips with the fact that we live in a world where a Beastie Boy died of cancer, it’s time to move on in celebration. As with any celebrity death, the bright side of MCA’s passing was that it got us to revisit our Beasties albums, which include some of the great tracks in rap/rock history.

And the Beasties aren’t a band with a lack of classic tracks. Going for quality over quantity, they only released 5 albums in their first twenty years, but packed each of them with gems. Add in a couple of later, lesser albums, and you have more than enough for us to take our first stab at bringing our world-famous fantasy drafts to music.

As with our other fantasy drafts, the idea was to put together the best list possible, with an eye also to representing the Beasties career fully (one song per studio album was required). This also gives us a chance to take another look at the efforts of our favorite music video artist of all time (sorry, MJ).

We’ve been switching off the first pick, which means The Dilemma’s gets the blindingly obvious honors.

What’s Your Name, Yauch? “My Name Is MCA”

Like many Beastie Boys fans, I’m guessing, my favorite Beastie vacillated over time. When I was a kid, Mike D seemed to have the best and funniest rhymes. Then, during the Paul’s Boutique/Check Your Head era, I fell in love with MCA’s voice. In later years, I came around to Ad-Rock, as he seemed to remain the most vital and energetic.

But though my favorite member of the group shifted, I never wavered from the belief that Adam Yauch was the coolest Beastie Boy. That’s just an undeniable fact.

Now he’s gone. God fucking damnit.