AFRIKA BAMBAATAA
Afrika Bambaataa (born Lance Taylor; April 17, 1957) is an American disc jockey, singer, songwriter and producer from the South Bronx, New York. 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 and is respectfully known as “The Godfather” and “Amen Ra of Hip Hop Kulture”, as well as the father of electro funk. Through his co-opting of the street gang the Black Spades into the music and culture-oriented Universal Zulu Nation, he has helped spread hip hop culture throughout the world. (More from Wikipedia)
Hip hop culture predates the development of rap and hip hop music by nearly a decade. From Wikipedia: “Hip hop is a subcultural movement that was formed during the early 1970s by African-American and Puerto Rican youths residing in the South Bronx in New York City. . . . It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: MCing (oral), turntablism or DJing (aural), b-boying (physical), and graffiti art (visual). . . . The origin of hip hop culture stems from the block parties of the Ghetto Brothers, when they plugged in the amplifiers for their instruments and speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used music to break down racial barriers, and from DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc mixed samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the ‘Father of Hip Hop’. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or ‘Emceein’, DJing or ‘Deejayin’, ‘B-boying’ [break dancing], and graffiti writing or ‘Aerosol Writin’.”
(September 2016)
