Hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa has died

American an artist known as a hip-hop pioneer Bambaataa Africa has died.

Bambaataa died of complications from cancer early Thursday in Pennsylvania, reports news site TMZ based on his anonymous sources.

Born in 1957, Bambaataa is remembered, among other things, as a rap artist and DJ. As an artist, he is especially remembered for his hit “Planet Rock”, released in 1982.

The bombborn Lance Taylor, grew up in modest circumstances in the Bronx, New York, in a tenement area of ​​social housing production.

He started in the music industry in the 1970s by organizing, for example, block parties where he worked as a DJ. Among other things, due to the influence of Bombaata, the residential area is considered the cradle of American hip hop culture.

Bambaataa, who was part of a street gang called Black Spades, founded a hip-hop collective called Zulu Nation in 1973. The organization used hip-hop to promote peaceful values. Over the decades, it grew into an international hip-hop and electronic music community.

“As the founder of the Universal Zulu Nation, Afrika Bambaataa helped shape hip-hop’s early identity as a global movement based on peace, unity, love and fun,” said director of advocacy group The Hip Hop Alliance, artist Kurtis Blow published on the group’s Instagram in the statement.

His vision transformed the Bronx into the birthplace of a culture that today reaches every corner of the world, the statement continues.

“His mark on hip-hop history will forever be part of the culture’s origin story.”

A bomb last years were colored by accusations of sexual abuse of children and human trafficking. In 2016, several men made accusations regarding events in the 1980s and 1990s, according to a British newspaper, among other things The Guardian.

Bambaataa denied the accusations and was never convicted of his actions in court, reports AFP.

However, in 2025, Bambaataa lost a case in civil court where he was accused of human trafficking because he did not show up. The victim was 12 years old when the suspected acts began.