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With Adam “MCA” Yauch’s prolonged illness and everyone preparing for the worst, it’s not hard to imagine people were collecting their thoughts on MCA and the Beastie Boys for a few years now. And when it happened, the dam burst (in more ways than one), and some damn good writing occurred. Here’s some of the best work we came across.

Cosmo Baker was a young street kid in Philly in the early 1980s, and he remembers vividly what it was like to see Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys sweep through the old Spectrum arena. He took to Twitter and completely flooded his timeline, but he later reposted everything to his blog. “3 dudes on stage covered in Bud dancing in front of an enormous dick saying EVERYTHING THAT WAS IN MY FUCKING MIND!” Enormous dick… yeah you need to read the article.

Sasha Frere-Jones should be a music writer you’re already familiar with, but if you didn’t know, the New Yorker music critic actually went to school with MCA. His first-hand account is a reflection of what it was like to see his buddy blow up from neighborhood hardcore kid to national sensation to humanist.

Finally, here’s Questlove’s remembrance, which is definitely from a different perspective from the other two and focuses a bit more on what it was like being a fan of them, and on how amazing the Beasties’ early 90′s transformation was. “I mean even the beatles imploded 5 years post spiritual enlightenment.” The Roots played for the Beasties’ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction earlier last month.

UPDATE: One more to note: Hua Hsu on Grantland focuses on the Beasties after Check Your Head and the virtues of growing up, and especially MCA, “unafraid of going gray”.

Missed the party last Friday at the Independent? Danced your ass off and couldn’t stand still enough for a decent picture? Good thing we took pictures. Like Yameen said, this wasn’t a Questlove show, it’s a Questlove party, and boy was it ever…see for yourself, check out our gallery below.

It’s no secret of the immense respect that Questlove has (and many of us have) of the late J Dilla, but it was J Dilla’s immense respect for Pete Rock that caused him to nearly destroy a beat that Questlove thought was the most amazing and intricate piece of sampling in hip-hop he’s ever heard. That beat, which J Dilla created on a lark trying to emulate his hero Pete Rock, using a Roy Ayers sample that Pete had used before, would end up mistakenly on a beat tape that Mos Def and Talib Kweli received and consequently turn into “Little Brother”, which appeared on the sountrack of a Denzel Washington flick, The Hurricane. Now that Black Star did Fallon Tuesday night, and performed “Little Brother” no less, Quest tells the story of what makes the “Little Brother” beat so special. The actual performance from that night is after the jump.

UPDATE: The Roy Ayres Project gives its own take on the sample, including the original Roy Ayres song, the studio recording of “Little Brother”, an a bit more background from the perspective of an Ayres enthusiast.

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Questlove and Black Thought sat down with the folks at VEVO and three videos from the session were posted on YouTube today. In the clip above, Black Thought recounts his teenage years and how he got kicked out of school and started doing deals on the block before a life-changing intervention put him on a different track. After the jump, Questlove talks about viral-pop sensations Karmin and their covers of radio hip-hop hits, and jazz pianist DD Jackson, whose “incredible, violent” style captivated Quest enough to invite him to play on their new album undun. read more »

Don’t want to make assumptions here, but I think he might like us over here. Questo of the Roots-o will be in Oakland for the 2011 installment of the Live is Living festival, October 8, 2011 at De Fremery Park, 11am–5pm; admission is free of charge. After the afternoon sound session, he’ll reprise his San Fran appearance from August, spinning a special DJ set that night across the bridge at Public Works. DJs Sake One, Apollo, and Mark Divita will be on the bill’s support, spinning to 3:00 AM in two rooms once again. Pre-sale discounted tickets are available via EventBrite. Check the flyer after the jump. read more »

Long nights are not a big deal for Questlove and the Roots. In 2009 once, I saw The Roots do a solid two hour performance sometime after midnight in the Highline Auditorium in Manhattan after rushing back from a show at Madison Square Garden, where they opened for Dave Matthews. And before that, they just finished taping Jimmy Fallon–three shows in a day, not counting whatever rehearsal time they had in the morning. So for Quest to come to San Francisco, perform a just-before-dusk set at Outside Lands outdoors, then coming back to do a DJ set at Public Works for nearly five hours, might just seem mildly taxing in comparison. The amazing part, however, is he went on from 10:30pm to 3am, past the usual San Francisco 2am curfew, when the entirely packed and constantly-kinetic dance floor dwindled to a handful of people who somehow managed to keep dancing. read more »

San Francisco’s biggest urban marketing & events production company (and the force behind Hip-Hop.com) will celebrate its seventh birthday in August, and it was decided that one party just wasn’t enough. Erykah Badu, reprising her vinyl-spinning persona DJ Low Down Loretta Brown, and Questlove of Twitter fame (and incidentally the frontman/drummer of The Roots) will come and do their respective things for Ankh Marketing’s 7th Anniversary Shows on August 12 at Mezzanine and August 13 at Public Works. Know all about their recordings but not sure how they play records? Check out our reviews and galleries of Erykah Badu’s and Questlove’s last DJ sets in San Francisco back in April.

For tickets, see baduankh.eventbrite.com and questoankh.eventbrite.com. Early-bird tickets are on sale now.

UPDATE: Check out the flyer for the shows: read more »

In case you were wondering why we don’t have any pics of Ghostface on stage last night at Questlove’s DJ set at Mezzanine, we had the camera busy rolling film on the whole set. Well, here’s the proof: Ghostface Killah surprises the hell out of the crowd and performs “Brooklyn Zoo” and “Cherchez LaGhost.” Ghost will have his own show next weekend, on April 29 at Mezzanine as well. Tickets are still available.

Questlove lived up to his (legendary?) reputation Friday night in the city. In a set over three hours long, he kept a packed house at the Mezzanine dancing and partying till the next morning that befitted his growing reputation online.

So, tweets aside, what was a Questlove set like? An immense blend of comic timing, machine-like precision, astuteness and a dash of mischief. Never with a missed beat, with effortless blends and cuts that seem to roll off his fingers like dice. His hands, for hours straight, adjusted knobs, faders, and records with a precision that yielded no wasted movement. Songs rarely stayed on the deck for longer than a verse, but each song seemed so effortlessly picked. The man knows his music, and at times the crowd was clueless on what he was playing, other times they can’t believe he just played that. read more »