{"id":390534,"date":"2026-04-09T21:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390534\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:26:08","slug":"afrika-bambaataa-dead-at-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390534\/","title":{"rendered":"Afrika Bambaataa Dead at 67"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/artist\/afrika-bambaataa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Afrika Bambaataa<\/a>, the pioneering rapper and DJ who tarnished his legacy with sex crimes against children, has died of complications from cancer, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/2026\/04\/09\/afrika-bambaataa-dead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">TMZ<\/a> reports. He was 67.<\/p>\n<p>Born Lance Taylor in the Bronx, New York, Afrika Bambaataa gained fame in the burgeoning hip-hop scene for DJing house shows and block parties. He became involved in the conscious rap movement Universal Zulu Nation, and his first single, 1980s \u201cZulu Nation Throwdown,\u201d celebrated Black creative excellence. His commercial peak came with 1984\u2019s \u201cPlanet Rock,\u201d which reached No. 4 on the US R&amp;B chart.<\/p>\n<p>His last decade was marred by legal troubles, including multiple accusations of sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and pedophilia against boys and young men in the 1980s and \u201990s. In 2025, he paid out a settlement to a man who <a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2021\/09\/afrika-bambaataa-sued-child-sex-trafficking\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">alleged<\/a> that Afrika Bambaataa abused and trafficked him to other adult men for four years starting at age 12. Hip-hop legend Melle Mel later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tPNGr8FPA1E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">claimed<\/a> \u201ceveryone knew\u201d about the abuse, calling it \u201chip-hop\u2019s best kept secret.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Related Video<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Afrika Bambaataa, the pioneering rapper and DJ who tarnished his legacy with sex crimes against children, has died&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-390534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390534","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=390534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}