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Adam Yauch

A founding member of the pioneering hip-hop group Beastie Boys, Adam "MCA" Yauch helped to bridge the gap between not only rock and rap, but between black and white listeners with his group's irreverent, often surreal songs and music videos. Yauch began the group as a teenager, ushering it from a brief tenure as a punk act in the late 1970s to an early hip-hop act anchored by deftly delivered anthems to debauchery like "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" They transformed themselves into a more mature, if still wryly humorous group that mixed their punk past with elements of jazz, electronica and heavy doses of samples from obscure records, earning Grammys along the way for the albums Hello Nasty (1998) and its addictive single "Intergalactic." Yauch himself became a well-regarded director, helming the Beastie Boys' videos as well as the concert feature "Awesome; I Shot That!" (2006) and the basketball documentary "Gunnin' for That No. 1 Spot" (2008). The Beastie Boys came full circle in 2012 with their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; unfortunately, Yauch was unable to attend the ceremony due to what many speculated was cancer of the parotid gland, for which he had been previously treated in 2009. Yauch's death in May 2012 devastated the Beasties' global network of fans, which remembered MCA as a boundlessly creative figure in hip-hop and Hollywood for over a quarter of a century.