The Beastie Boys have canceled their summer dates and pushed back the release of their upcoming album indefinitely. In a video message on beastieboys.com Adam Yauch announced that he’d been diagnosed with a localized form of cancer in his parotid gland and in one lymph node. Yauch says that a complete scan of his body shows the cancer has not spread.

Beastie Boys – Adam Yauch Announcement

The Beastie Boys were scheduled to headline one night of this year’s Lollapalooza. Earlier this year Adam Yauch (a.k.a. MCA) told EW.com, “[The new album’s] a pretty weird record,” Yauch said, adding that unlike 2007’s all-instrumental The Mix-Up, the new LP will feature “a lot of rhyming and playing and sampling — all combined.”

Best wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery to MCA.

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Statement from Adam Yauch:

Unfortunately, we’re going to have to cancel a bunch of our shows coming up, and actually push back our record release, because about two months ago I started feeling a little lump in my throat like you would feel if you have swollen glands or something like that, like you’d feel if you have a cold, so I didn’t really think it was anything. But then just recently when we were over in Europe doing promotion I started thinking I should talk to my doctor so I called my doctor and saw him when I got back. This was about two weeks ago and he sent me to a specialist and they did tests and I actually have a form of cancer in a gland that’s called the parotid gland and it’s also in a lymph node right in that area. So I’m actually going to have to have surgery, probably next week coming up, and after that have to have some radiation done localized in that area. But the good news is that they did scans of my whole body and it’s only localized in this one area and it’s not in a place that affects my voice. So that’s nice. So that’s convenient. So anyway, it’s a little bit of a setback, it’s a pain in the ass, but this is something that’s very treatable in most cases. They’re able to completely get rid of it and people don’t have continuing problems with it. And they’ve caught it early, and it’s not anywhere else in my body, so that’s the good news. So that’s what up. So I apologize to everybody for anybody who’s made plans or was psyched to come to these shows that are coming up and I apologize to anyone who’s put themselves out in terms of their schedules or whatever. And we’ll be back doing it soon. So that’s what’s up.