Beastie Boys legend Mike D has announced details of his debut solo album ‘Thank You’ with new single ‘True Colors’.
The rap legend became the first of the trio to emerge with solo music since the passing of Adam “MCA” Yauch in 2012 when he surprised fans last month with appearance on stage with his sons Davis and Skyler of indie-dance band Very Nice Person at Ojai Valley Women’s Club.
With his sons in backing band 5D, they soon played a couple of live solo shows in the US at some unusual locations where he debuted solo material before Mike D dropped his first single ‘Switch Up and later ‘What We Got‘.
A run of UK shows followed last week, kicking off with an intimate show at Kings Street Social Club in North Shields. Now, he’s shared that debut solo album ‘Thank You’ will arrive in August. Mixed by Derek ‘MixedByAli’ Ali and mastered by Nicolas de Porcel, the album was made at Diamond’s home studio after sessions with his sons the first of a cast of collaborators that would expand to include Carter Lang, Jared Solomon, Ging, Jason Lader, Eddie Ruscha, Tyran Donaldson and more.
“It’s been so much fun making this music with people I love and I have grown to really appreciate in our collaboration,” said Mike D. “And I just hope it’s fun for others and not overly serious, because let’s be real, I’m releasing this music into a very strange and dark and power-fixated world that really devalues art and feelings and compassion and empathy and equality.”
The album is said to have “a fluid, intuitive nature”, reflected in the artwork by visual collaborators Can Can Press, Thad Higa and Charles Deroyan.
Speaking to NME about creating his first music since Beastie Boys’ final album ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part 2’ in 2011, Mike D explained why this was coming now and moving on from the passing of MA.
“We so much loved all three of us being in a band with each other for Beastie Boys,” Mike D told us. “When Yauch died, it was an extremely sad time for me so making music was just not on the table. Then being a dad was something I put myself into and eventually I worked on the [Beastie Boys Book] with Adam [“Ad-Rock” Horovitz] and that really helped both of us as we were really able to shine a light on our past together.
“I took a minute where I was watching my kids make music for a bit, which was an interesting thing as I was also working on producing records for other artists. That was fun and everything – and hats off to really good record producers, I’m not knocking it – but for myself I got to a place where I was feeling the most about what I was producing when bands were more executing my ideas. I was like, ‘What the fuck am I doing? Bands shouldn’t be doing my ideas, they should be making their own ideas and I should be making my own ideas’.”
Asked if he felt any pressure in being the first Beastie Boy to go solo, he replied: “To be honest, there was no race to the finish line on that one! I’m still thankfully good friends with Ad-Rock and he’s not racing me on this one. It wasn’t until I had to sit down and do the first interview that I realised that was a thing.”
The artist and producer explained to NME how there was “a lot of commonality in terms of how I worked with Beastie Boys” in terms of “plugging in seemingly random instruments and falling in love with how certain things sound” before “getting a bit further down the line and really editing fearlessly and cutting stuff back”.
“The difference was that I had to get myself into a place of being very free in terms of doing my vocals,” he revealed. “In the band, we were all each other’s best editors. There was almost a little bit of competition and one-upmanship, in a good way. Here, I realised early on in the process that even with a lot of amazing collaborators, my kids were my best editors. They don’t relate to me [in that way]. They haven’t listened to ‘Hello Nasty’ a gazillion times. They were extremely frank with me on my vocals, which was super helpful.”
He added: “The way I describe the record is that musically it’s still pretty immature, and lyrically it’s a little bit more mature. I just feel like there’s more of the things I had to tap into. I had to learn how to feel all over again.”
Mike D releases ‘Thank You’ on August 28. Pre-order it here and check out the full tracklist below:
1. ‘Switch Up’
2. ‘What We Got’
3. ‘True Colors’
4. ‘That’s Right’
5. ‘Secrets Pt. I’
6. ‘Secrets Pt. II’
7. ‘I Don’t Care’
8. ‘Make It Stop’
9. ‘Crypto’
10. ‘Here We Are’
11. ‘Back To Start’
12. ‘It’s Time’
13. ‘Thank You’
His remaining tour dates with 5D are as follows. Visit here for tickets and more information.
JUNE
10 — Saalchen — Berlin, Germany
13 — Primavera Sound Festival — Porto, Portugal
14 — Beyond The Pale Festival — Wicklow, Ireland
16 — La 2 de Apolo Nitsa — Barcelona, Spain
18 — Blender at Bolwerk — Kortrijk, Belgium
19 — De Casino — Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
20 — Beyond The Streets — Paris, France
SEPTEMBER
26 — Portola Music Festival 2026 — San Francisco, USA
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