Sad news, Rolling Stone Magazine has reported Adam Yauch  has died at the age of 48.

Rolling Stone magazine reports that Adam Yauch (commonly known as MCA and one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys) has passed away aged 48 this morning. He had been battling cancer since he was diagnosed in 2009.

It’s especially sad as Yauch sat out of the Beastie Boys’ induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just last month, and the group had not performed live since the summer of 2009.  Yauch’s illness also prevented the group from appearing in music videos for their last album Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2.

Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz in 1979. The band started off as a hardcore punk group, but soon began experimenting with hip-hop. The band broke big with their first proper album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986, and further albums Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication cemented the band as a true superstar act.

In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, MCA was heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet and co-organized the Tibetan Freedom Concerts of the late Nineties.

Our thoughts are with Adam’s family and ALL hip-hop fans around the world, we can’t even begin to explain how sad this is for the hip-hip world. The Beastie Boys and Run DMC are pretty much what got hip-hop to the success it has nowadays. 

You can find the Rolling Stone article here

~written by Kasewene