Michael Diamond, known as Mike D of the Beastie Boys, is returning to music with his debut solo album Thank You, following a period of grief after the death of bandmate Adam Yauch in 2012. The 60-year-old rapper, who had stepped back from the spotlight, says he could not make music for a long time after Yauch's death: 'I'd open a computer file, and I'd just feel sadness.'
Diamond, speaking in a London hotel lounge while munching cereal, reflects on the Beastie Boys' journey from their 1986 debut Licensed to Ill to their disbandment after Yauch's death from cancer. The album's cartoonish frat-bro culture, set to hard rock and hip-hop fusions, propelled them to global stardom and rap's first US chart-topping album, but also sparked a moral panic in the UK.
UK tour and moral panic
Their 1987 UK tour stirred a Sex Pistols-style reaction, with MPs calling for bans, tabloid headlines like 'Get Lost Beasties' in the Mirror, and a Liverpool show cut short after 12 minutes ending in a riot. Diamond describes the experience as 'terrifying, humbling, alienating and surreal', a lightbulb moment that 'what we say does actually impact people'. The fallout nearly split the group that year.
The band's creative reinvention came through Horovitz's west coast friends, the Dust Brothers, masters of digital sampling, leading to the experimental 1989 album Paul's Boutique. Initially muted in reception, it has since been hailed as a masterpiece.
From provocation to social consciousness
The trio, once known for punchlines like 'You like men and we like beers', became beacons of positive social messaging, apologising for past lyrics with lines like 'the disrespect to women has got to be through' and 'homophobics ain't all right'. Diamond says they felt 'this nice, enriched feeling' after the shame of Licensed to Ill's reaction, adding that comedy and music remained partners: 'They're both things humanity desperately needs.'
His new record is experimental and socially conscious, with nods to industrial music, psych, and dream-pop, and lyrics taking in self-reflection. The return to rapping emerged from home-studio jams with his sons, whose indie pop duo Very Nice Person is stamped all over Thank You. 'When we first started playing, everybody just picked up something we'd basically never played before,' Diamond says.
Mortality and gratitude
Reflections on mortality loom large, with Diamond noting unresolved feelings from Yauch's death and his own past: 'My dad died when I was 15. There was all this emotion I'd never dealt with.' The track Crypto was inspired by an acquaintance of his sons getting rich from cryptocurrency at 19, prompting reflections on greed and capitalism: 'You just get sucked so quickly into this vacuum.'
Diamond feels 'time is the most valuable commodity', and returning to making music is time well spent: 'I'm the most whole version of myself when I'm creatively completely engulfed and engaged.' He praises Death Grips and Tyler, the Creator, as continuations of the energy the Beasties brought. The closing title track is an impressionistic look at his early years, inspired by a visit to a Buddhist monastery, prompting reflection on 'who I get to make music with, who I've made music with'. He smiles: 'I'm so grateful for all of this.'
Thank You by Mike D is out on 28 August.
