As the year comes to a close, The New York Times Magazine will be paying tribute to the entertainers we lost this year including Whitney Houston,  Don Cornelius, and more. Perhaps one of the most shocking deaths of this year came on May 4, 2012 when Adam “MCA” Yauch from the legendary group, the Beastie Boys, lost his long battle with carotid-gland cancer. As a tribute to MCA and his life, the New York Times Magazine put Adam on the cover of their tribute issue. Inside of the issue itself, Alex Pappademas of Grantland writes about MCA’s impact on the Beastie Boys, hip hop, and pop. Read some of Pappademas’ words below. RIP, MCA!

Julie A.

Pappademas on the Beastie Boys: “They were white Jewish New Yorkers who played together as a teenage hardcore band before they made hip-hop records; when they started rapping, they bent the music to their own concerns without robbing it of its outlaw appeal.”

On Adam Yauch’s lyrics in “Sure Shot” about the disrespect of women: “Should it have been obvious from the beginning that disrespecting women wasn’t O.K.? Sure. But now they were calling themselves on their own failings of judgment.”

Check out the full tribute here.