{"id":390528,"date":"2026-04-09T21:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390528\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:22:09","slug":"hip-hop-pioneer-afrika-bambaataa-dead-at-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390528\/","title":{"rendered":"Hip Hop Pioneer Afrika Bambaataa Dead at 67"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rapper & DJ Afrika Bambaataa
\n Dead at 67<\/p>\n

\n Published
\n April 9, 2026
\n 12:20 PM PDT
\n |
\n Updated
\n April 9, 2026
\n 1:53 PM PDT\n <\/p>\n

Afrika Bambaataa<\/a> — a rapper and DJ who helped pioneer hip hop — has died … TMZ has learned.<\/p>\n

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … he died from complications of cancer at about 3 AM today in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Bambaataa was born in The Bronx …. and he joined the local gang the Black Spades, quickly rising up the ranks in the gang to the position of “warlord.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Beginning in the 1970s, Bambaataa began hosting parties where hip hop flourished … which quickly grew to become huge block parties in the South Bronx.<\/p>\n

Bambaataa released his first single in 1980 titled “Zulu Nation Throwdown” — a reference to the Universal Zulu Nation, an art collective for socially conscious rappers, graffiti artists, B-boys, and more people involved in hip hop culture — and his 1982 track “Planet Rock” rose up the ranks to reach Number 4 on the U.S. R&B chart.<\/p>\n

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In 1985, Bambaataa helped make the anti-apartheid album “Sun City” with several huge artists … including Joey Ramone, Run-D.M.C., U2, and many more.<\/p>\n

Near the end of his life, Afrika Bambaataa ran into a host of legal issues … after multiple men accused him of sexually abusing them in the 1980s and 1990s. He was forced to pay out a settlement in 2025 to a man accusing him of sex trafficking him in the 1990s after a judge issued a default judgement when he didn’t show up to court.<\/p>\n

Bambaataa was 67.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rapper & DJ Afrika Bambaataa Dead at 67 Published April 9, 2026 12:20 PM PDT | Updated April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2476,321,93,338,61,60,43,2477],"class_list":{"0":"post-390528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hip-hop","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-tmz-hip-hop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}