Afrika Bambaataa, the pioneering hip-hop DJ and founder of the Universal Zulu Nation, has died from complications relating to cancer, TMZ reports. He was 67.
Born Lance Taylor in 1957, Bambaataa gained notoriety in New York’s early hip-hop scene for the block parties he threw in the South Bronx. In 1973, he co-founded the Universal Zulu Nation, the hip-hop awareness organization with a credo of “Peace, Love, Unity, and Having Fun.” “Planet Rock,” the Kraftwerk-sampling 1982 single credited to Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force, reached No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Bambaataa was among the many artists—including Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis, Bono, and Run-D.M.C.—tapped by Steven Van Zandt and Arthur Baker to appear on their 1985 anti-apartheid protest song “Sun City.”
In 2016, Ronald Savage, an activist, politician, and former music industry executive, accused Bambaataa of repeatedly molesting him when he was 15 years old in 1980. More allegations followed, all from men who said Bambaataa sexually abused them in their youth. He was subsequently removed from his leadership position in the Zulu Nation. Last year, Bambaataa lost a lawsuit that had been brought against him by an anonymous John Doe, who testified to being abused and sex trafficked between the years 1991 and 1995, beginning when he was 12. A judge handed down a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff after Bambaataa failed to enter a legal response.
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