Beasties Plan Long Break After Tibet Show, Adam Yauch Says

Rapper also uses online chat to side with critics of violence in song lyrics.

Contributing Editor Brian Hiatt reports:

The Beastie Boys will take an extended break from touring and recording following their performance next weekend at the Tibetan Freedom Concert, group member Adam Yauch said Sunday.

"This is the last show that we're gonna do for a while," Yauch said during a Tibetan Freedom Concert '99 chat presented by SonicNet/Yahoo.

Yauch, who performs under the name MCA, also used the hour-long chat to side with critics who have said some rock and hip-hop lyrics can have a negative influence on young people. He said Beastie Boys fans, apparently responding to the band's early songs, used to approach the band and say that "it was cool to carry a gun, or they would say derogatory things about women because they thought it was cool."

"When I realized lyrics really do affect people, I thought more about what I was putting out into the world." -- Adam Yauch, Beastie Boys rapper

But he suggested it isn't government's place to police such lyrics.

He said that while he didn't necessarily disagree with a federal investigation, ordered last week by President Clinton, into how record companies and other entertainment businesses market their wares to children, "there is a real danger of treading on our freedom of speech."

"What seems most ironic to me," Yauch said, "is that if the U.S. government really wants to show young people that they should solve their problems nonviolently, what they could do is support the Tibet movement, which is based on nonviolence."

The Beasties' last show before their break will be Sunday's U.S. portion of the Tibetan Freedom Concert, a rap-heavy bill in East Troy, Wis., that will also feature OutKast, the Roots, Biz Markie, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, Run-D.M.C., Blondie and the Cult. Other bands will play this weekend in Toyko; Sydney, Australia; and Amsterdam, Netherlands, for the same cause: to push for Tibet's freedom from 50 years of Chinese rule.

Afterward, the Beastie Boys, who founded the annual Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1996, are "planning on taking a long break," Yauch said. He did not provide a specific time frame or explain why.

There was no immediate discussion of Yauch's pronouncement on the newsgroup alt.music.beastie-boys.

The Beastie Boys wrapped up a tour of Japan, Europe and Australia with a May 27 show on Tasmania, an Australian island, according to the band's official website (www.beastieboys.com). Their most recent album, Hello Nasty (1998), features the hits "Intergalactic" and "Body Movin' " .

Yauch, 33, said the Tibetan Freedom Concerts may continue in future years. But, he said, "My real hope is that there will be [no] more and that Tibet will gain its long-awaited freedom in the near future. But I am committed to doing whatever I can to help out in the meanwhile."

The rapper said Tibet's nonviolent struggle against China also could provide a positive example for teenagers worried about recent school violence, including the shootings two months ago at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., where 15 people died.

Learning of the Littleton tragedy "made me feel that much more conviction for being involved in the Tibet movement," Yauch said. "Because, on the one hand we're helping the Tibetans to gain their freedom, but on the other hand I really do believe that Tibet's struggle is a model that all of us can learn from. I think that in almost all circumstances violence can be avoided."

In the wake of those shootings, critics of rock and pop, including senators and congressmen, have blamed popular song lyrics by such bands as Marilyn Manson and the Offspring as a cause of youth violence.

Agreeing with those critics, Yauch said he regrets writing some of the Beastie Boys' early lyrics, which have been called violent and misogynistic. "When I realized lyrics really do affect people, I thought more about what I was putting out into the world," he said.

The Beastie Boys didn't always feel that way, he said. "At the time we wrote those songs, I never imagined that they would have any negative effect on people," Yauch said. "But over the years ... people would come up to me and say they identified with this thing or that thing from a song or say that it was cool to carry a gun, or they would say derogatory things about women because they thought it was cool."

In recent live performances, the Beastie Boys have altered or removed some lyrics from their older songs. For instance, they've dropped the line "I did it like this, I did it like that/ I did it with a whiffleball bat" from the song "Paul Revere," which was on their debut album, Licensed to Ill (1986).