3 Fun Facts About Mike D To Welcome His Debut Solo Album ‘Thank You’

Beastie Boys’ Mike D has returned with his debut solo album Thank You. With production help from his sons, the New York rapper turned home-studio experiments into a fully formed album of glitchy and punkish electro-rap. To welcome Thank You, and the joyous return of a Beastie Boy, here are three random facts about Mike D.  

He Thought He Was Finished Making Music

After the death of bandmate Adam “MCA” Yauch in 2012, each time Mike D opened his computer to work on music, he was overwhelmed by sadness. So years went by, and perhaps, he thought, he was finished making music. However, with his sons, Davis and Skyler, Mike D finished Thank You, and his familiar and very much missed voice is back. Combining generations of technology—Mike D’s four-track cassette recorder and his sons’ ease with computers—his solo debut finds the “one lonely Beastie I be” musically reborn.

UNKLE

Thank You may be Mike D’s solo debut, but in 1998, he appeared on UNKLE’s first album, Psyence Fiction. The English electronic group, which at the time featured James Lavelle and DJ Shadow, inspired by The Verve, brought the worlds of trip hop and alternative rock together. The Verve’s front man, Richard Ashcroft, also appears on the album alongside Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Badly Drawn Boy, and Ian Brown from The Stone Roses. But on “The Knock (Drums Of Death Pt. 2)”, Mike D emcees the kind of patchwork track that echoes how Beastie Boys had perfected the art of sampling.

Grand Royal and Luscious Jackson

In the tradition of The Beatles’ Apple Records, Beastie Boys formed an imprint called Grand Royal. The trio’s third album, Check Your Head, was the first to feature the label’s logo. But the first signing was Luscious Jackson. The New York alt-rock group features drummer Kate Schellenbach, who was a founding member of Beastie Boys. Grand Royal also became a magazine, though the company officially shuttered in 2001. Luscious Jackson’s second studio LP, Fever In Fever Out, was certified Gold, propelled by the hit “Naked Eye”.

Regarding the label, Mike D said, “We used to sit for hours coming up with these ideas. But we never did anything about it.” This all changed with a Luscious Jackson demo, and Grand Royal soon developed a cult following in its short existence.

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