One of hip-hop’s earliest and most controversial figures has passed away at 68. Afrika Bambaataa died in Pennsylvania at 3 am after a bout with prostate cancer. The DJ and rapper was born in the Bronx, New York, and eventually formed the Zulu Nation. He was one of the first behind the turntables to use the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which helped give hip-hop its formative sound. With the Soulsonic Force, Bambaataa made the legendary “Planet Rock”, becoming one of the biggest hip-hop hits in the 80s.
However, Afrika Bambaataa quickly became disgraced after child sex abuse allegations surfaced about him. In 2016, former music industry executive Ronald Savage accused him of sexually assaulting him at 15 years in his memoir Impulse Urges and Fantasies. “I want him to know how much he damaged me growing up,” Savage told the New York Daily News. “I was just a child. Why did he take my innocence away? Why did he do this to me?”
Chuck Freeze, a former collaborator with Afrika Bambaataa, said he had no clue at the time but didn’t doubt the validity of Savage’s claims for a second. “Ronald was the kind of guy you could trust,” Freeze told the outlet. “You could leave money on the table and know it would be there when you got back. A really good dude. Easy to talk to. Very intelligent. We had no idea about this—and we would not have tolerated it if we did. Do I believe it? Yes, I do.”
Afrika Bambaata dies at 68 Years Old After Many Scandals and Allegations
After Savage came forward with his story, three more men also accused Bambaataa of sexually abusing them. “He’s a manipulator and a liar. He’s just waiting for this chaos to blow over so he can go back to his dark, dingy hole and go back to his old ways. He needs to put down the candy and let the little boys go,” Hassan Campbell said after sharing what happened to him.
Eventually, the Universal Zulu Nation, which Afrika Bambaataa helped form, ousted him from the group. In 2016, VICE reported several other stories breaking down how he molested kids for decades. In 2021, another victim sued Bambaataa for sexually assaulting him and trafficking him at 12 years old.
According to one late rapper, the DJ went to great lengths to retaliate against those who would’ve exposed him. In 2017, Tony Pernell Bell, known as Izlam, told Chicago documentarian Leila Wills that members of the Zulu Nation were allegedly threatening him after he left the group and spoke out against Afrika Bambaataa. “He was very nervous,” Wills told Noisey. “He was in fear of his life. He sent me through all kind of rigors before I could meet with him and before he would give me his address. He was constantly watching his back because [he believed] there were Zulus all over.”
Not long after, Izlam was gunned down in Atlanta.
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