Quotable MCA
On his daughter, etc.
On growing up:
On his life now:
See MCA pics
On letting go of his previous lifestyle and his future:
"You can see that that stuff can bring a person a lot more unhappiness on a long-term basis than happiness on a short term. Look, I still have a good time. I still like to joke around and laugh and stuff, but I just try to be aware of where it may be destructive to other people. And I think I still have a huge ego to get over--I think everyone does. That's when we need to come to grips with in society: the fact that we're all egomaniacs."
On how the Beastie Boys write their lyrics:
"It's not like we sit down and plan this. In one way, we just show up and make whatever happens. But we don't show up like blank-canvas people. We each come up with these things in our heads that we want to try to get down... We read lyrics to each other and say, 'I like this one,' 'I like that one,' 'Let's put these together.' We construct it all into a song, then figure out how to switch it off between the three of us: "I'll try saying this line, you try saying that line." The lines that end up in the song are really the stuff we all like."
On the future of hip-hop:
"It's going to go in some direction that is entirely inconceivable now. If someone had been asked twenty years ago what direction they thought music was going, they wouldn't have said sampling."
"I've been playing Beatles records for my daughter, because my parents used to play Beatles records all the time when I was a little kid. There's something about her being here that makes me want to play them, and then it reminds me of being a kid."
"When I first started jamming, in the back of my head I thought, 'I have been tested, and my aptitude is not in music.' My mom was giving me the 'You need something to fall back on routine.' I was telling her, 'No, I'm going to be a rock star.' Now she just says, you were right, you told me.'"
"I'm very happy with my life right now. Amazingly so. I often sit and reflect on it. I sit in my room before I go to sleep at night and think, 'Wow, this is nice."
Read more about MCA in his own words in a detailed interview