Beastie Boys’ Mike D releases new solo single ‘What We Got’ and announces his first-ever UK show at Newcastle’s Kings Street Social Club on June 3
Fourteen years after the death of Adam “MCA” Yauch brought the Beastie Boys to a permanent halt, Michael Diamond is moving again. On May 27, 2026, the 60-year-old rapper known as Mike D released his second solo single “What We Got“ and announced his first-ever UK show, an intimate gig at Kings Street Social Club in North Shields, near Newcastle, on June 3. The back-to-back releases confirm that what started as a surprise family jam session in April has become something considerably more sustained and deliberate.
“What We Got” is built around heavy, clattering percussive beats and distorted guitars, matched by Mike’s distinctive aggressive, clipped vocal delivery. It carries the funk and haze that defined the Beastie Boys at their best. Stereogum described the track as having hazy samples, fuzzy guitars, and echo-drenched vocals, with Mike reflecting on his “million-dollar lingo” and reckoning with being, in his own words, a retired MC who needs a plan B. The track was produced by Carter Lang and Tyran Donaldson and mixed at NoName Studios by Derek “MixedByAli” Ali, the engineer behind much of Kendrick Lamar’s catalogue.
The new single follows “Switch Up,” released May 8, which marked the first new music from any Beastie Boys member since the group’s 2011 album “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two,” a gap of fifteen years. Both tracks emerged from experimental home studio sessions involving Mike D’s sons Skyler and Davis Diamond, who perform together as the indie-dance band Very Nice Person, along with additional collaborators including Jason Lader, Benjamin Pacheco, Kevin Rhomberg, Carter Lang, and Tyran Donaldson. The debut single premiered at a sold-out show at Los Angeles’ Plaza Nightclub and Dance Hall, and Rolling Stone described the performance as one where Mike D “sounded energized” across a set that blended unreleased solo material with Beastie Boys classics.
From Surprise Stage Guest to Solo Headliner
The entire arc of Mike D’s return began modestly. In April, he appeared onstage with Very Nice Person in Ojai, California, the first time he had performed Beastie Boys material publicly since MCA’s passing. Ojai Playhouse owner David Berger, who helped facilitate the show, told the Ojai Valley News that the gig was put together in “less than a week.” “It was a thrill to have Mike and his sons perform in Ojai. Not only do I feel that way, but I think the whole town feels that way,” Berger said. That surprise performance sparked the chain of events that has now produced two singles, a short US tour with sold-out dates in Brooklyn, and an upcoming European run.
The North Shields date on June 3 at Kings Street Social Club joins existing UK dates in London’s 26 Leake St on June 5 and 6, followed by shows across Germany, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, and France later in June. It is Mike D’s first solo European tour, and the choice to open it at an intimate social club in the North East of England, rather than a major London venue, signals the same low-pressure, community-driven ethos that has defined the whole project from the start.
The Legacy Behind the Momentum
Mike D and fellow Beastie Boy Ad-Rock have both been clear since MCA’s death that the Beastie Boys name would not continue. In 2018 they released the Beastie Boys Book, and in 2020 it was adapted into a documentary directed by Spike Jonze. In April 2026, the group also dropped a deluxe reissue of “To The Five Boroughs” on triple vinyl and double CD. But “What We Got” and “Switch Up” represent something different. They are not legacy products. They are new music, shaped by a new generation, carrying the Beastie DNA forward without trying to replicate it. For anyone who has spent fifteen years wondering what came next, the answer is arriving quickly and in small rooms.
