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Adam Yauch might have best explained what the Beastie Boys were, and weren't, in their 1980s prime: "Hey, we're not exactly angels."
Yauch, the once-rowdy rap trio's MCA, died Friday after a battle with cancer he thought he'd won.
He was 47.
News of Yauch's death was broken by longtime friend Russell Simmons, the music mogul who served as the Beastie Boys' mentor and first manager.
Simmons' Def Jam label released the group's 1984 breakthrough album, Licensed to Ill.
Where once Yauch and his Brooklyn-based band of brothers, Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, were the bad boys of rap with anthems such as "(You Gotta) Fight for the Right (to Party!)," the group moved into new directions in the 1990s and beyond.
Yauch told Britain's NME that the Beasties changed up the lyrics of older songs such as "Girls" and "Paul Revere" when their mature selves found the original lines offensive.
A distinguished gray in his later years, Yauch was a leader in the Free Tibet movement, and branched out into film.
Under the name Nathanial Hornblower, Yauch directed the fan-footage-shot Beasties concert film, Awesome, I F--kin' Shot That!. His independent film company distributed the Michelle Williams Oscar vehicle, Wendy and Lucy.
Yauch was diagnosed with a a cancerous tumor in his parotid gland in 2009.
In January 2011, he announced that he was disease-free, and feeling "healthy, strong and hopeful."
Last month, however, Yauch was ailing, and his fellow Beasties skipped the group's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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