Mike D releases first solo album Thank You after years of grief over Beastie Boys bandmate's death

Beastie Boys rapper Mike D did not expect to make another record. For a long time, even opening his computer to work on music could bring him back to grief over the loss of his bandmate Yauch, one of three members of the Beastie Boys, who died of cancer in 2012.

"Pretty soon after Yauch's death, I would open my computer and I would start to try to work on music because that just seemed like, OK, that's what I do," Mike D told Morning Edition.

But for a long time, he said, he would keep attempting to create music and "keep feeling really sad."

Mike D said he was grieving not only "someone that I loved so much," but also "this whole identity that we created together."

Now, 15 years after the last new music from any member of the Beastie Boys, Mike D has made Thank You, his first solo album.

He shares a home studio with his sons, Davis and Skyler. Davis, he said, is a gifted producer and arranger. And he praised Skyler's talent for coaxing synthesizers and drum machines made decades apart "to all speak to each other."

His sons came of age making music on computers, with Mike D describing their comfort with the technology as "literally their natural language." Mike D's own musical vocabulary began with a Tascam four-track cassette, a tool he said is "a great machine" he still stands by.

But the thread running through his music is collaboration. Mike D says he likes arriving with an idea and watching it change in the hands of other people.

"We never end up making what I had in my head originally," he said. "But I'm actually happier with it."

NPR's A Martínez spoke with Mike D about creative freedom, what changes with time and why the best ideas don't always end up where they started.

Listen to the full interview by clicking the play button above.

The digital version was edited by Treye Green.