Bambaataa was a serial sexual abuser and everybody in the rap scene knew it back in the day (early 90s) same way everyone knew about R. Kelly (I ran a rap program on the radio in 92-94).
Damn. As someone half the world away I just knew him as a pioneer, news didn't travel enough to know anything about the personal lives of artists in the early 00s.
No idea about the allegations until now, which means the news doubly suck.
I've read this a number of times, and dismissed it because there's no proof. But, I'm beginning to believe it, given the sheer amount of different sources saying it.
Not a reasonable question. All my information was third hand at best.
We didn't play Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records. That's about all a radio station could do. Can't state what legally speaking were merely rumors on the air without facing problems. All you can do is not support them commercially, which we did.
We had a whole list of stuff we wouldn't play. R Kelly's first album was around 93 (I can't remember now) and the video of him and the underage girl that initially got him charged was known about at the time. The music and also information about the musicians reached people in the loop somewhat earlier than it reached everyone else. It's also 30+ years ago and details are not easy to remember, but there was no social media or internet. We had pirated cassette tapes and vinyl freebies from the distributors and word of mouth. R Kelly specifically there were djs who played him. This was not a commercial station so we could ban Tupac with no problems and we did. We also thought he was a mediocre rapper. There's lots of revisionism in how people remember things now.
For context we were in a big northeastern city with a good range and at the time there was almost no other regular rap programming on the radio (one other show locally). Outside NYC it was very hard to get rap (or even R&B) on the radio except in certain places or in very commercial programming (and then biz market and Beastie boys were maybe the best stuff you could put on the radio). Something like hit 107 in ATL (a very receptive market) started in 1990 and even there rap programming was mostly on college and community stations. We had guest djs beeping swearwords live on turntables while they stole our records because everyone was too high to pay attention. It was very much a bunch of kids into music convincing someone that this music deserved a time slot and one mistake and it all got cancelled. A lot of them were socially conscious and there was a lot of pushback against the misogynistic and gangster stuff but commerce won. We had issues about playing shabba ranks and the like too because of all the homophobia in dancehall. Tupac's case was a tough one because he had fans and defenders.
A friend of mine has worked in TV and film for decades. Many times he has told me about rumoured offenders (typically after they are arrested), but other than avoiding working on productions with them what are his choices? Trying to do a completely ridiculous "citizen's arrest"?
That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers.
For example a lot of early bluesmen are known to be highly problematic and the completely clean ones are rare (Howlin' Wolf is one).
I've been recently experimenting with rape as a structuring force in sociology and anthropology (when I say "experimenting", I'm mean as a work hypothesis) and I'm now thinking it's more determinative at scale than murder. After all murder takes someone out of the pool.
I wouldn't go around DJing an abuser's music but I find it insufficient to stop at signaling about it and cancelling. That's where the work begins, not where it ends.
Stopping at jailing abusers will force them to hide better and prevent the more cowardly ones from acting, but it won't stop before the process behind it is fully understood, internalized and treated.
I don't know the story behind it but there's a very high chance Afrika Bambaataa was abused as a child.
> That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers
I think we have enough evidence these days to confidently say race has nothing to do with it.
For people who get enough power and influence they'll either become role models from a position of power, get followers and maybe even act as mentors to their subsequent victims (priests, teachers, various artists, activists and other "influencers"), or they're rich enough to think/know they can get away with anything (everyone in the Epstein files).
You're mis-interpreting if you're thinking I'm ascribing it to race. Frankly, I'm not an American and I don't care for it.
I'm saying quite literally that it's over-represented in Black American artists, alongside with drug abuse. Which is a theme explored extensively by Black American artists themselves, most recently Kendrick.
That it happens to white people in a similar set of circumstances (absentee parents and abuse during childhood) confirms my point.
Sadly a reoccurring problem with lots of white rock and roll “heroes” from Aerosmith to Led Zeppelin to Iggy Pop to Lynyrd Skynyrd to The Cars to The Stones…
Massively influential guy to hip hop, but what a shame.