With the New York he grew up in a figment of the past, Mike D has taken to traveling the world in search of its energy.
“When I grew up in New York, the city was unique in that you could get music from all over the world here,” the former Beastie Boy told Vulture’s David Marchese. “Now you can get any music you want on your phone and New York, or Manhattan anyway, seems a lot less diverse.”
The 52-year-old explained that he and his family have started living a nomadic life so that his children get to experience what he did growing up in the New York of the ’70s and ’80s.
“It’s that I want my kids to experience diversity,” he continued. “I think it’s important to travel the world with them. And it’s also about breaking open the myth that the United States is this leading majority. We’re not … I want to my kids to have the opportunity to see themselves as a citizen of the world and not only America — whatever the hell America means today.”
Having spent his twenties and thirties touring with the Beastie Boys, the rapper is comfortable living on the move but also want his two sons to get to know people from different places and backgrounds.
“At this point, in the world of Trump’s politics, there’s so much upside to be had by breaking down the whole idea of nationalism,” he said. “My kids’ peers at school are from all around the world, not just the Upper West Side or Brooklyn. I really think that helps them think differently about the world in a positive way.”
Although he’s lived in Los Angeles since the ’90s, Mike D isn’t just some crank who thinks New York isn’t cool anymore (although he laments that the city has become “so f–king expensive”). Instead he says it was the death of lifelong friend and fellow Beastie Boy Adam Yauch in 2012 that really helped put things in perspective.
“After what happened with Adam, I realized that life can be short,” he said. “Especially being a parent, the moments I appreciate most are when I’m with my kids and we’re all experiencing something together. It’s very difficult to do. Your kids get older and become more autonomous, and when you’re in that cave of Brooklyn or LA you’re going to default to a certain mundanity of existence. That’s not what I’m in the market for.”
The rapper has two teenage sons, Davis and Skyler, from his marriage to filmmaker Tamra Davis.