After last week’s AmNews article regarding several pedophilia allegations made against DJ Afrika Bambaataa, the hip-hop pioneer responded by requesting an opportunity to speak his piece, with his new attorney, Charles Tucker, providing legal advice. Once the opportunity was granted, they attempted to clarify the confusion.
“These demons never stop,” Bambaataa said. “Every couple of years, there’s a new attack or something is coming up, and this one, people tried to discredit Afrika Bambaataa or the Universal Zulu Nation, and you’re trying to destroy one of the last groups that’s helping people. You never see anything good [in the media] about all the good work that I’ve done over the past 50 years. There’s always somebody out there that tries to bring hate or slander to cause harm against one another in our community.”
The horrid child molestation allegations made against him first appeared in the pages of former Zulu member Ronald Savage’s 2014 memoir.
Then earlier last month, shock jock Star a.k.a. Troy Torraine from the highly popular Star and Buc Wild radio show, formerly on Hot 97, and then on Power 105, broke the story on his Shot 97 youtube channel, with a complete interview from Savage. He soon followed with four more alleged victims.
The New York Daily News subsequently followed with a cover story featuring some alleged victims who are now grown men and claimed to have been sexually molested by Bambaataa when they were minors.
The attorney commented on last week’s AmNews article. “A lot of that was misinformation from an Internet site, which has been putting out allegations against my client Afrika Bambaataa,” said Tucker.
Bambaataa said the purpose of the allegations and all the media attention is, “to cause confusion and chaos within the Zulu Nation and give disgruntled members, or ex-members, a platform to spew hate or attempt shakedowns or a takeover.” He added, “It will not stop.”
Tucker agreed, saying, “These are baseless attempts to assassinate his character.”
When asked if the attacks were an extortion attempt or motivated by publicity, Tucker responded, “If you watch those people on the Internet, you’ll see the motivation. All of a sudden that particular site is running commercials, when before it wasn’t. You can kind of put the pieces of the puzzle together and see where the motivation lies. One of the alleged victims is connected to politics and is involved in a push to move legislation forward regarding the statute of limitations. Funny how all of this is coming out in an election year.”
Some activists and people in the public are calling for the founder of the Universal Zulu Nation to surrender his position amid the illicit allegations.
“My client Afrika Bambaataa is a co-founder of this great organization and he shouldn’t have to step down from anything,” said Tucker. “Those in the know, know that the council runs Zulu Nation and is in charge of the day-to-day affairs, and he has not been a part of that for some time. His work to fight violence will continue. The need for him to step down does not exist. Those trying to bring this attack against him to bring down Zulu Nation will surely fail.”
When asked if alleged victims Ronald Savage and Hassan Campbell were ever in Bambaataa’s inner circle, Tucker responded, “We’re not commenting on any of the alleged victims by name. We are only commenting that they are alleged victims.”
Bambaataa added, “You couldn’t even come in my presence in the1970s. He wasn’t around me, you had to go through many people [to get to me]. Some people try to place themselves somewhere they’ve never been. You see a lot of contradictions in these people’s stories. Is someone speaking to you or something? Is it a plot? Are people offering you something? When we fight for hip-hop or somebody gets mad, they start to attack the Zulu Nation or we’re gonna attack Bam, but nobody talks about all the good that we do in our communities.”
When asked where did the allegations stem from, Bambaataa responded, “We gotta ask why now, and not back in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s or 2000s? It’s strange how all this is coming out now after I get awards from South Africa, when we’re doing certain things in the streets with the gangs and we’re trying to help people.”
Tucker added, “These allegations stem in large part—they seek to defame him and assassinate his character. The bulk of these allegations lack the necessary credibility you would normally see around these type of allegations.”
Alluding to financial motivations by the alleged victims, Tucker said, “There’s been attempts by these alleged victims to contact members of Bambaataa’s camp more than once seeking to get something out of it. I’ve never seen that from alleged victims. I think their actions speak for themselves. It’s like people are automatically jumping to conclusions when the evidence of facts don’t support that.”