Here’s what I know I know about MCA
Here’s what I know I know about MCA: He likes Bad Brains and the Knicks, he supports a Free Tibet, and he’s got no love for George W. Bush.
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ShareHere’s what I think I know about MCA: I think he had a traditional Buddhist wedding, complete with a parade down the streets of Brooklyn. I think he stopped doing drugs. I think am pretty sure that I used to see him in Soho when I was walking from my apartment in Chelsea to my job in the Financial District. He had a beard, a longboard, and a kid. I saw him at the same place every morning. I figured his kid went to school somewhere around there and that he walked him/her to school and then skated home. We made eye contact once. The eye contact said, Yeah, I’m who you think I am. Or so I thought. I didn’t push it. My friend said he—MCA—lives in Brooklyn, but I think he—my friend—was just jealous.
It doesn’t really matter which of this is true and which isn’t. It all informed my reaction when I saw him on the clip announcing his heavy news. “What must his wife and school-age child think? When will he skate again?”
* * *
The hard part about this whole thing—the part that nearly prevented me from going down this road in the first place—is that the story doesn’t really have an ending. Not yet, anyway, and hopefully not for a long, long time. I’m already mindful of a last-remembrances tone. I certainly don’t want to be accused of burying someone before he is gone.
Things are going better for my mother. She was released a week after she was admitted. Longer than she thought; longer than any of us wanted. But she’s better. The intravenous antibiotics did what the oral ones could not. She’s back at work next week. We all think it’s too soon.
Things seem to be going reasonably well for MCA. There was an email last week. This one titled “what i did over my summer vacation”. It’s worth quoting in full. It reads:
aug 5 2009
hey all,
hope you are doing well.
so i’m about a week and a half out of surgery now and rapidly recovering from it. i haven’t taken any of the pain meds, which supposedly speeds along the healing process, or should i say, taking them slows it down. anyway, i spent 1 night at the hospital after the surgery. the hospital was too crazy to get any rest so i headed home to relax, have home cooked food and hang out with the family.
i’m pretty well detoxed from the anesthesia that they pumped me up with to keep me under for all that time. that took several days to get out of my system. my neck and jaw are still pretty stiff from the surgery, but it gets better everyday. had the stitches out this past monday… so things are moving along.
but no sooner am i on the mend from this first torture than are they lining up the next one. the next line of treatment will be radiation. that involves blasting you with some kind of beam for a few minutes a day, 5 days a week, for about 7 weeks. that will start in a few weeks…
saw the jay-z cover of no sleep, and the coldplay one of fight for your right from APW on youtube. good shit. and i heard karen o wore a “get well MCA” armband, and that q-tip gave a shout out too….. very kind of them.
just wanted to thank them and everyone else who sent positive thoughts my way. i do think that all of the well wishes have contributed to the fact that my treatment and recovery are going well.
much love back at all of you!
adam
* * *
In lieu of a new album a new single has emerged. A song called “Too Many Rappers” that they made with Nas. They debuted it at Bonnaroo. There’s a quality audio version of the song on YouTube.
Ad Rock gets the best line when he says “Oh my god just look at me / Grandpa been rapping since ‘83”. That made me laugh.
But the most poignant lines belong to Yauch. He’s the first of the Boys to solo on the song. He rasps, “Yo, I been in the game since before you was born / I might still be emceein’ even after you’re gone / Strange thought, I know, but my skills still grow / The 80’s, the 90’s, 2000’s and so / On and on until the crack of dawn / Until the year 3000 and beyond / Stay up all night and I M.C / and never die, cuz death is the cousin of sleep.”
I admit that I don’t really know what that last part means, but the part before—the part about rapping until “the year 3000 and beyond”—that part got to me.
It’s a great lead single. The beat is a little Check Your Head-ish, but the song is definitely its own thing. Something both familiar and new.
I can’t wait to see them play it live.
A final word: Since the original version of this essay was written, MCA has sent out another message to his fans. This one is called “post india update”. Apparently he went to India to see some Tibetan doctors (and, as it worked out, to drop in on some class that the Dalai Lama was teaching). He says, “i’m feeling healthy, strong and hopeful that i’ve beaten this thing, but of course time will tell”.
The Tibetan doctors told him to eat vegan/organic. He says that this is easier to do here than there. This surprises him.
He then talks about a nunnery that he visited and he provides a link. “[I]t’s about $350 a year to sponsor a nun if you are interested,” he writes. I’m not sure how I feel about this.
He wraps up with a final update about the new record and his health: “we have not set a new release date for the record yet, but i’m hoping it’ll be in the first half of next year. looking forward to that, but in the meantime, i’m just enjoying a little downtime in massachusetts, taking walks in the woods and hanging out with the family”.
Just yesterday—the day on which I received the latest MCA update—my mom was back in and out of the hospital. It sounds like I’m making this up, but I’m not. This visit was completely unrelated to the other.
She’s fine. A minor thing. But did I mention that she was in and out of the hospital? I talked to her earlier today, in fact. She sounds tired.
There’s something to be said here in the end about family: MCA hanging out with his; me being far away from mine; all of us getting older and experiencing some variation of the same thing.
Family, immediate and otherwise.
I’ve read and re-read this piece some dozen times over the past two months, and, despite my initial insistence to the contrary, I’m just now realizing that this is what it was about all along.
