“Yo, Check Out This Tape”

One day, when I was about 9 or so, my cousin gave me a mixtape. It was black, with dirty white labels on both faces.

The contents were scrawled on the labels in ball-point pen, with the text crowding into the corners and folding back on itself to stay in the lines. On one side of the tape was written “Doolittle - Pixies, Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde”.

The label on the other side was dedicated completely to one album. It read “Beastie Boys - License to Ill.”

I wore that thing out playing it on repeat in my Sony Walkman on the bus to school, the smell of vinyl and unwashed kids heavy in the air.

That tape would end up defining my musical life for a decade and ended up forming the backbone of the music I love today. I haven’t talked to him in years but I owe him for introducing me to the ‘Boys.

Today, MCA, Adam Yauch, of the Beastie Boys, died from that piece of crap, cancer. Thanks for all the laughs. I’m gonna try to dig up that tape and my Walkman and relive those days listening to it over and over in the back of the bus.