Mike D Returns with First Solo Track, First New Music from a Beastie Boy Since 2011

New music from the Beastie Boys camp surfaced on 11 April, not through a grand announcement but through a surprise set at a Los Angeles nightclub. Mike D released his first solo track, “Switch Up,” while on stage with his sons Davis and Skyler Diamond at Plaza Nightclub & Dance Hall. The track marks the first material from any individual Beastie Boy since the group’s 2011 album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.

The recording started as an experiment in Mike D’s home studio during sessions with his sons, who perform as the indie-dance duo Very Nice Person. The Diamond brothers brought their father out for a set that mixed their own material with Beastie Boys classics like “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” and “So What’cha Want.” “Switch Up” dropped online overnight while the show was still in progress.

The 14-year gap in output follows the death of Adam “MCA” Yauch in 2012, after which the group stopped performing and recording. Mike D’s return arrives not as a solo career launch but as a casual, collaborative gesture between generations. The track’s emergence feels less like a relic of a bygone era and more like an organic byproduct of family and studio time.

The release reshapes how new Beastie Boys-related music can enter the world. It sidesteps legacy machinery and taps directly into the group’s foundational ethos: make something, share it, don’t overthink.