Adam Yauch, a rapper and founder of the pioneering and multimillion-selling hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 47.

The rapper, known to fans as MCA, passed away Friday morning (May 4) after a long battle with cancer.

Adam was treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node and underwent surgery and radiation therapy in 2009.

I was shocked and deeply saddened by the news. The Beastie Boys have been one of my all time favorite groups growing up and still listen to them today. I’m glad I got a chance to watch him perform in LA back in 2006. May you rest in peace. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Adam‘s family during this difficult time.

Intergalactic, directed by MCA under the pseudonym of Nathanial Hornblower, was the Beasties’ biggest hit in the UK, reaching No 5 in 1998. The video was another superb and affectionate parody that amply reflected their satirical imaginations: this time it was Japanese sci-fi/horror B-movies that got the pastiche treatment. Again, it demolished (movie monster pun intended) all-comers at the MTV Video Music Awards, and the Beasties got to live out their mad professor and cyber worker fantasies. And they got to show their best kung-fu moves while wearing yellow wellington boots.

The 1986 bracket-fest (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!) wasn’t the Beasties’ first single – that honour went to 1985′s She’s On It. It wasn’t even the first single released off their 1986 debut album,Licensed To Ill - in fact, it was the fourth. But the song, helped not a little by the video, was the one that propelled them to global infamy and, at least for the next three years, fixed them in the public imagination as the terminally bratty snot-rap upstarts. Cameos include Def Jam labelmateLL Cool J and their producer Rick Rubin.