Afrika Bambaataa, Often Called the ‘Godfather of Hip-Hop,’ Is Dead

A pioneering rapper and D.J. from the Bronx, Mr. Bambaataa was accused of child sexual abuse later in his career.

JONATHAN ABRAMS & HANNAH ZIEGLER

Afrika Bambaataa, the pioneering Bronx D.J. credited with shaping and defining hip-hop in the 1970s and 1980s, whose legacy was later tarnished by widespread accusations of sexual abuse, has died.

Mr. Bambaataa’s death was confirmed in a statement from the Universal Zulu Nation, the international hip-hop awareness group he founded. Mickey Bentson, his friend and a member of the group, shared the statement on Thursday on Facebook.

It was not immediately clear where and when Mr. Bambaataa died. His cause of death was also not immediately clear, but Mr. Bentson wrote that his friend had “peacefully fallen asleep and did not wake up.”

Last year, Mr. Bambaataa, often known as “the godfather of hip-hop,” lost a civil case in which an anonymous plaintiff accused him of child sexual abuse and trafficking.

Mr. Bambaataa grew up in the Bronx River Houses, a low-income public housing project in the borough’s Soundview neighborhood. In 2017, he told the Red Bull Music Academy that his parents were New Yorkers, but he had Caribbean roots.

As a youth, he joined the Black Spades, a flourishing street gang. He told Red Bull that his worldview began shifting after he won a school essay that included a trip to Africa.

Michael Holman, a conduit in bridging early hip-hop with downtown Manhattan’s bustling art scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, recalled Mr. Bambaataa as one of hip-hop’s pivotal figures.

“He recognized that it was time to stop fighting and time to start partying,” Mr. Holman said. “Because of his leadership in transforming the Bronx from a battlefield to a park jam, most people think of D.J. Afrika Bambaataa as the architect of hip-hop. So, the world owes a debt to him, and hip-hop culture owes a debt to him.”

As a musician, Mr. Bambaataa first earned recognition in the 1970s for organizing large block parties that presaged the rise of rap music and culture. Hip-hop’s origins are murky and debated, but Mr. Bambaataa is often credited as one of three Bronx D.J.s — along with D.J. Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash — who founded and propelled hip-hop forward.

Hip-hop, in those early days, revolved around the D.J. locating and extending popular breaks (the parts of a song containing the percussion and rhythm sections) so that B-boys and B-girls could perform their acrobatic dance moves.

Mr. Bambaataa was hailed as a master of records and drew from Kraftwerk (“Trans-Europe Express,” “Numbers”) and funk, salsa and other genres. He often removed or masked the labels of his records to obscure the music’s origins.

“I remember a park jam at the Bronx River Projects in which kids start pogoing to ‘I Dream of Jeannie’s’ theme song because they recognized that he was sampling from various cultures and making it work within his style, within dance, within funk, within soul, within hip-hop,” Mr. Holman said.

“Not only did he have an enormous record collection, but he knew how to wield it.” Mr. Bambaataa defined the early culture of hip-hop when he created the Universal Zulu Nation in the early 1970s.

“This is when the street gang era was starting to die out, fade out, and I was trying to transfer people from this other group that I had started — the Organization — to the Zulu Nation,” Mr. Bambaataa told Red Bull.

“It started in the Black and Latino community, and then it started spreading out to the different communities, throughout the tristate area, and then throughout the United States, and then throughout the world.”

He founded the nation, he said, to promote peace and unity. He also popularized the term hip-hop, defining it as encompassing four distinct components: D.J.ing, M.C.ing, breaking and graffiti.

“Many people have a misconception of what hip-hop is,” he told The New York Times in 2014. “When they say hip-hop, they only say it’s the rapper, and there’s a whole culture and movement behind it.”

Sexual abuse allegations against Mr. Bambaataa became public in 2016, when the political activist and former music industry executive Ronald Savage accused him of repeated abuse. Mr. Savage later retracted his accusations, but more people soon emerged making similar accusations. Rolling Stone reported last year that 12 men in addition to Mr. Savage had accused Mr. Bambaataa of sexually abusing them.

A lawsuit filed against Mr. Bambaataa in 2021 accused him of abusing his position within the Universal Zulu Nation to groom and sexually abuse children. The lawsuit also accused the Universal Zulu Nation of providing Mr. Bambaataa with access to children despite knowing about allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Rolling Stone reported in 2016 that the Universal Zulu Nation had issued a letter apologizing to Mr. Bambaataa’s alleged victims. The group disassociated itself from its founder in May 2016. Bambaataa denied allegations of sexual abuse.

Mr. Bambaataa often dressed as his music sounded, with a nod to the future. He wore capes, huge jewelry and leather. Soon, he shifted with hip-hop from jams, parks and playgrounds and into studios and record labels. In 1981, he became the first major hip-hop artist to sign with Tommy Boy Records, a label that later signed other influential hip-hop acts like De La Soul and Queen Latifah.

Mr. Bambaataa released “Jazzy Sensation” with the Jazzy Five in 1981, which blended rap routines with a Gwen McCrae sample.

In 1982, he released one of hip-hop’s most influential records in “Planet Rock” with the Soulsonic Force. The Arthur Baker-produced song combined rap with sophisticated electronic dance music. The track influenced much of the hip-hop subgenres that followed its release, including West Coast electro funk and Miami bass.

Mr. Bambaataa did not experience the national name recognition of other acts and producers, as hip-hop crossed into the mainstream in the mid-1980s. Yet, he continued to make his mark with recordings like “Looking for the Perfect Beat” (1983) and “Unity” with James Brown (1984). He returned to his electro roots in the 1990s through offerings like “Planet Rock ’98” and, by 2006, he had released around 20 albums.

New York Times