Christopher Herz

Author

Hanging on jungle gym bars in what, before today, was known as Palmetto Playground in Brooklyn Heights, fans of Adam Yauch (MCA) gathered for the renaming of a park that the young Beastie Boy played in as a child.

Kyle Scott

Politics and constitutional law professor, Duke University

When Adam Yauch died, his family and friends lost someone they loved. The rest of us lost someone we knew of and whose work we loved. The Tibetan people lost one of their most high-profile supporters in the U.S.

Joanna Popper

Vice President of Marketing, NBCUniversal/Telemundo

Why have Miami Radio Stations not played any Beastie Boys songs since MCA died May 4?

Reggie Cameron

Writer contributing to OUT, Queerty, and Condé Nast; blogger, NowMyButtHurts.com

I caught up with SPORK collaborators Cazwell and The Lady Tigra as they reflected on Yauch's/MCA's career and the role he's played in their lives.

A-Trak

DJ & Producer

There is usually one band you can look back on and think "these guys raised me, they remained the definition of cool throughout the years, I wanted to be like them and studied everything they did." For me, and for many others across generations, that was the Beastie Boys.

Joanna Popper

Vice President of Marketing, NBCUniversal/Telemundo

At my 20th high school year reunion, the Beastie Boys brought us back to our raging, hormonal innocence where we learned that it might be okay to be ourselves because the Beasties were doing it.

Summer Pierre

Illustrator; Author, 'The Artist in the Office: How to Creatively Survive and Thrive Seven Days a Week'

When I heard that Adam Yauch had died, it was like learning that one of the guys I went to high school had died. I honestly had not listened to a Beastie Boys album in a few years, but they were one of those bands that inhabited my life.

Benjamin R. Barber

Democratic theorist; Author, 'Strong Democracy', 'Jihad vs. McWorld'

As we remember Adam Yauch and his pioneering musicality, we should also acknowledge his pioneering civic courage -- his identity as a punk musician and rapper for whom citizenship was a natural expression of art, and interdependence a necessary concomitant of citizenship.

Tenzin Dorjee

Activist, Writer and Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet: www.sfthq.org

I met Adam Yauch only once. It was during a bathroom break, which came at the end of a heated session in a Tibet-China conference at Harvard in 2002. We greeted each other in Tibetan.

Jon Chattman

Published Author, asidesmusic.com founder and host, Blogger, Dad

I want to mourn the death of an icon by watching tributes on a so-called music station. Yauch and the Beasties were pioneers in the hip hop and pop culture world. This news hurts. It's time for MTV to return to its roots.