Adam Yauch

Categories: Celebrity Buddhists | American Buddhists

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

Adam Nathaniel Yauch, (pronounced Yowk), also known as MCA and Nathaniel Hörnblowér, is a founding member of hip-hop trio the Beastie Boys. Yauch was born August 5, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York. Adam is also an only child.

Yauch went to Bard College before dropping out. Yauch learned to play the bass, and played his first show with the Beastie Boys—then still playing hardcore punk in the vein of Reagan Youth—on his 17th birthday, while still attending Edward R. Murrow High School in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. By the time Yauch was 22, producer Rick Rubin had taken the Beastie Boys under his wing and they had released their first album on Def Jam Records as a hip hop trio.

While on the hiatus from their debut album, Licensed to Ill, Adam Yauch started a New York-based band called Brooklyn. They released an album called "Brooklyn Sessions" around 1987. The EP features the bass line for "Gratitude", a song off of the Beastie Boy's third album, "Check Your Head".

In addition to the Beastie Boys, Yauch is involved in many other activities. Although his family was Jewish, Yauch is also a practicing Buddhist, contributing to his political activism. He is actively involved with the Free Tibet movement, an organisation created to show solidarity with the plight of the Dalai Lama and to put pressure on the People's Republic of China to respect human rights in Tibet. Funds for the cause were also generated from the royalties to Buddhist-inspired Beasties tracks like Bodhisattva Vow. In 1996 Yauch helped organize the first Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco, California. His wife, Dechen Wangdu, is from New York City, her parents are from Tibet. They have one child together.

Under the pseudonym "Nathaniel Hörnblowér", Yauch has directed many of the Beastie Boys' music videos. Yauch made his televised debut as Hornblower at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards as he stormed the stage in costume to protest after R.E.M. won the award for Best Direction over the Spike Jonze directed Beastie Boys video "Sabotage". He also directed the 2006 Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!, though in the DVD extras for the film, the title character in "A Day in the Life of Nathaniel Hörnblowér" is played by David Cross.

In addition to his work with the Beastie Boys, Yauch is also an avid snowboarder and skateboarder.

In 2007, Yauch went to work on the highly anticipated comeback album from seminal hardcore-punk band Bad Brains. Yauch has stated that Bad Brains had great influence on his musical career, which is shown through the punk edge the Beastie Boys hold.