Afrika Bambaataa
Lance Taylor, also known as Afrika Bambaataa, is a retired American DJ, rapper, and record producer. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.
Through his co-opting of his street gang Black Spades into the music and culture-oriented organization Universal Zulu Nation, he has helped spread hip hop culture throughout the world.
In May 2016, Bambaataa left his position as head of the Universal Zulu Nation due to multiple allegations of child sexual abuse dating as far back as the 1970s.
Early life
Born Lance Taylor to Jamaican and Barbadian immigrants, Bambaataa grew up in the Bronx River Projects, with an activist mother and uncle. As a child, he was exposed to the black liberation movement and witnessed debates between his mother and uncle regarding the conflicting ideologies in the movement. He was exposed to his mother's extensive and eclectic record collection. Gangs in the area became the law, clearing their turf of drug dealers, assisting with community health programs and both fighting and partying to keep members and turf.Bambaataa was a member of the Black Spades. He quickly rose to the position of "warlord" in one of the divisions. As warlord, it was his job to build ranks and expand the turf of the young Spades. He was not afraid to cross turfs to forge relationships with other gangs, and their members. As a result, the Spades became the biggest gang in the city in terms of both membership and turf.
After Bambaataa won an essay contest that earned him a trip to Africa, his worldview shifted. He had seen the movie Zulu and was impressed with the solidarity exhibited by the Zulu in that film. During his trip to Africa, the communities he visited inspired him to create one in his own neighborhood. He changed his name to Afrika Bambaataa Aasim, adopting the name of the Zulu chief Bhambatha, who led an armed rebellion against unfair economic practices in early 20th-century South Africa. He told people that his name was Zulu for "affectionate leader". Bambaataa formed The "Bronx River Organization" as an alternative to the Black Spades.
Career
Due to the oft nebulous timeline of hip-hop origins, there are conflicting accounts of when Bambaataa began hosting parties. Some suggest he began as early as 1970, predating noted "father of hip hop" Kool Herc, while others contend he began after Herc in 1976, in fact, attending and drawing inspiration from Kool Herc parties. He vowed to use hip-hop to draw angry kids out of gangs and form the Universal Zulu Nation.Inspired by hip-hop icons like DJ Kool Herc, Bambaataa began hosting block parties throughout the South Bronx, including at the Bronx River Organization. Bambaataa engaged primarily as a hip-hop artist. Much of his early fan base was centered on the hip-hop movement, as Bambaataa established numerous rap groups including the Jazzy 5 and the Soulsonic Force, which featured many artists that had overlapped with the Universal Zulu Nation.
In 1982, Bambaataa began playing "authentically" electronic music in the form of EBN-OZN’s “AEIOU Sometimes Y”, which was the first ever commercially released American single made on a computer, namely the Fairlight CMI. Inspired by electronic music groups such as Kraftwerk, Bambaataa realized the potential for technological advancement in music making, deciding to stop performing with a live band and instead only relying on technology on stage. That same year, Bambaataa released his breakthrough electro-funk track in the form of “Planet Rock”, which featured Bambaataa, producer Arthur Baker and the Soulsonic Force. This groundbreaking single, featuring the iconic line “party people, can you feel it?,” seamlessly blended electronic sounds, drum machines, and futuristic synthesizers with traditional funk and hip-hop elements. Featuring a synth hook from Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express”, as well as electronic drum patterns from their track “Numbers,” Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” not only became a massive commercial hit in clubs and on dance floors everywhere, but also set the stage for the emergence of electro-funk as a distinct genre.
Robert Keith Wiggins, a.k.a. "Cowboy" of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, is credited with naming hip-hop. The term became a common phrase used by MCs as part of a scat-inspired style of rhyming. The term was first used in print to refer to the music by reporter Robert Flipping, Jr. in a February 1979 article in the New Pittsburgh Courier, and to refer to the culture in a January 1982 interview of Afrika Bambaataa by Michael Holman in the East Village Eye. The term gained further currency in September of that year in another Bambaataa interview in The Village Voice, by Steven Hager.
In 1982, Bambaataa and his followers – a group of dancers, artists, and DJs – went outside the United States on the first hip-hop tour. He saw that the hip-hop tours would be the key to help expand hip hop and his Universal Zulu Nation. In addition it would help promote the values of hip hop that he believed are based on peace, unity, love, and having fun. He brought peace to the gangs; many artists and gang members say that "hip hop saved a lot of lives". His influence inspired many overseas artists like the French rapper MC Solaar.
He was a popular DJ in the South Bronx rap scene and became known not only as Afrika Bambaataa but also as the "Master of Records". He established two rap crews: the Jazzy 5 including MCs Master Ice, Mr. Freeze, Master Bee, Master D.E.E, and AJ Les, and the second crew referred to as Soulsonic Force including Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow and Emcee G.L.O.B.E.
In 1982, Bambaataa, who was inspired by Kraftwerk's futuristic electronic music, debuted at The Roxy a test cassette of EBN-OZN's groundbreaking, 12-inch white rap/spoken word "AEIOU Sometimes Y". It was the first commercially released American single ever made on a computer, a Fairlight CMI, ushering in the era of music computer sampling. In that same year, Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force stopped performing with a live band, and began to use only technology. Bambaataa credited the pioneering Japanese electropop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, whose work he sampled, as an inspiration.
He also borrowed a keyboard hook from German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk and was provided the electronic Roland TR-808 "beat-box" by producer Arthur Baker and synthesizer player John Robie. That resulted in "Planet Rock", which went to gold status and generated an entire school of "electro-boogie" rap and dance music. Bambaataa formed his own label to release the Time Zone Compilation. He created "turntablism" as its own subgenre and the ratification of "electronica" as an industry-certified trend in the late 1990s.
Birth of the Universal Zulu Nation
In the late 1970s, Bambaataa formed what became known as the Universal Zulu Nation, a group of socially and politically aware rappers, B-boys, graffiti artists and other people involved in hip hop culture. By 1977, inspired by DJ Kool Herc and DJ Dee, and after Disco King Mario loaned him his first equipment, Bambaataa began organizing block parties all around The South Bronx. He even faced his longtime friend Disco King Mario in a DJ battle. He then began performing at Adlai E. Stevenson High School and formed the Bronx River Organization, later simply The Organization.Bambaataa had deejayed with his own sound system at the Bronx River Houses' Community Center, with Mr. Biggs, Queen Kenya, and Cowboy, who accompanied him in performances in the community. Because of his prior status in the Black Spades, he already had an established Army party crowd drawn from former members of the gang. Hip hop culture was spreading through the streets via house parties, block parties, gym dances and mix tapes.
About a year later Bambaataa reformed the group, calling it the Zulu Nation. Specifically, Bambaataa watched the 1964 film Zulu, which sparked the name for the group. Five b-boys joined him, whom he called the Zulu Kings, and later formed the Zulu Queens, and the Shaka Zulu Kings and Queens. As he continued deejaying, more DJs, rappers, b-boys, b-girls, graffiti writers, and artists followed him, and he took them under his wing and made them all members of his Zulu Nation.
He was also the founder of the Soulsonic Force, which originally consisted of approximately 20 Zulu Nation members: Mr. Biggs, Queen Kenya, DJ Cowboy Soulsonic Force, Pow Wow, G.L.0.B.E., DJ Jazzy Jay, Cosmic Force, Queen Lisa Lee, Prince Ikey C, Ice Ice, Chubby Chub; Jazzy Five-DJ Jazzy Jay, Mr. Freeze, Master D.E.E., Kool DJ Red Alert, Sundance, Ice Ice, Charlie Choo, Master Bee, Busy Bee Starski, Akbar, and Raheim. The personnel for the Soulsonic Force were groups within groups with whom he would perform and make records.
In 1980, Bambaataa's groups made Death Mix, their first recording with Paul Winley Records. According to Bambaata, this was an unauthorized release. Winley recorded two versions of Soulsonic Force's landmark single, "Zulu Nation Throwdown", with authorization from the musicians. Disappointed with the results of the single, Bambaataa left the company. The arranger credit on these recordings is correctly attributed to Harlem Underground Band leader Kevin Donovan. This led to the false assumption that Bambaataa's real name was Kevin Donovan, which was widely accepted by the hip hop community until recently, following sexual abuse allegations, when Bronx River residents spoke out and revealed in oral testimonies that Bambaataa's real name was in fact Lance Taylor.
The Zulu Nation was the first hip-hop organization, with an official birth date of November 12, 1977. Bambaataa's plan with the Universal Zulu Nation was to build a movement out of the creativity of a new generation of outcast youths with an authentic, liberating worldview.