Adam Yauch

Adam Yauch, an only child, was born on August 5, 1964 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Frances and Noel Yauch, who is a painter and architect. His father was Catholic (of Irish, German, and French descent) and his mother was Jewish. Adam attended Edward R. Murrow High School in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. In high school, he taught himself to play the bass guitar. He formed Beastie Boys with John Berry, Kate Schellenbach, and Mike D. On his seventeenth birthday, they played their first show, then still a hardcore punk band in the vein of Reagan Youth. Adam attended Bard College for two years before dropping out. Beastie Boys added Adam Horovitz to the group, and released their first album, Licensed to Ill, on Def Jam Records, now performing as a hip hop trio. They went on to open for Madonna on her famous "Like a Virgin" tour. The group gained huge success with numerous genius albums and tours, and founded their own label "Grand Royal Records" in 1993. Under the pseudonym "Nathanial Hörnblowér", Yauch directed many of the Beastie Boys' music videos. In 2002, Yauch built a recording studio in New York City called Oscilloscope Laboratories. He began an independent film distributing company called Oscilloscope Pictures. Yauch directed the 2006 Beastie Boys concert film, although in the DVD extras for the film, the title character in "A Day in the Life of Nathanial Hörnblowér" is played by David Cross. He also directed the 2008 film Gunnin' For That #1 Spot about eight high school basketball prospects at the Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic at Rucker Park in Harlem, New York City. Yauch produced Build a Nation, the comeback album from hardcore/punk band Bad Brains. Oscilloscope Laboratories also distributed Adam Yauch's directorial film debut, basketball documentary Gunnin' For That #1 Spot (2008) as well as Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy (2008) and Oren Moverman's The Messenger (2009). Yauch was a practicing Buddhist. Inspired by his own extensive travels as well as the The Dalai Lama, Yauch became publicly passionate about the destructive, violent situation in Tibet, and created "The Milarepa Fund" in 1994 to help promote awareness and generate support around the world. He organized the first "Tibetan Freedom Concert" in San Francisco in 1996, which he followed with years of a similar series in the United States and worldwide. His Milarepa Fund has raised large sums of money for the Tibetan cause and its nonviolent Buddhist struggle to maintain an actual state of existence on the planet. In May of 1998, Adam married Dechen Wangdu, and they have a daughter named Tenzin Losel Yauch. Yauch has influenced an entire generation of human souls to look deep within themselves in search of a greater truth and a peaceful, compassionate understanding of all that surrounds us. In 2009, Yauch was diagnosed and treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node, and underwent surgery and radiation therapy, delaying the release of Hot Sauce Committee Part Two and the subsequent tour. He was unable to appear in music videos for the album. Yauch became a vegan under the recommendation of his Tibetan doctors. Beastie Boys had sold 40 million records worldwide by 2010. In 2011, Yauch received the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College, the college he attended for two years. In April 2012, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yauch was inducted in absentia due to his illness. His bandmates paid tribute to Yauch, and a letter from him was read to the crowd. Adam Yauch died from cancer on May 4, 2012, in New York City. He was survived by his wife and son.