Out of Afrikaa
by Jim Pinckney
Afrikaa Bambaataa, one of the great pioneers of hip-hop and techno, prepares to lay down the funkiest beats known to mankind at his Big Day Out performance.
No wonder Afrikaa Bambaataa was nominated by Life magazine in its special issue listing the most important Americans of the 20th century. A truly larger-than-life figure, committed to peace and positive living, he has produced or collaborated with artists ranging from James Brown and John Lydon to Leftfield and the Jungle Brothers; he can also safely wear the title as grandfather of hip-hop and techno.
Along with Grandmaster Flash and Kool DJ Herc, Bambaataa was responsible for building the DJ foundation of hip-hop. It isn’t unreasonable to suggest that all roads lead back to this turntabilised trinity, who started out playing block parties and park jams together or against each other in the Bronx in the early 1970s. They were the first to spin the breakdown sections of tracks back to back to allow breakdancers to develop an entirely new form of street dance; they were also the first to fully explore the possibilities of scratching and MCing.
The rewards have been few. Even though Herc was credited with much of the innovation, he swiftly vanished into virtual obscurity, and is now a name familiar only to those with a deep interest. Grandmaster Flash was quick to realise the possibilities of taking the hip-hop sound uptown to the clubs. Building up a formidable DJ reputation, he also released some genius records (The Message, White Lines) before watching his rappers the Furious Five – and his career – fall to pieces around him. He has only seriously picked up the thread in the last two years.
But Bambaataa, who is preparing to visit New Zealand as part of the 2004 Big Day Out line-up, never dropped out of sight for long. His mission has always been to push hip-hop and the positive force of funk forward by any means necessary.
When he began deejaying in the early 70s, the requisite tools weren’t even available. “There was no mixer, none of that,” he says. “You brought your system out of your mother’s or father’s house. That’s the ones when they used to have the spindle that drops six records, 45s, at one time. Or you could pull off the spindle, and play it manually, hoping that the needle don’t keep going back.
“And then you used to set up on the other side with somebody else’s system. When you saw the record going down, you flashed the light and then put on the other record and hope you get it on cue before the next record goes down. That’s before there was any mixers or two turntables together or any echo chambers.”
Bambaataa was born Kevin Donovan in New York City. A fervent collector of vinyl from an early age, he was gifted a set of turntables by his mother after graduating from high school and his life changed. Now able to throw his own parties, he built up a fearsome reputation for his eclectic mixes that might begin with “The Munsters Theme” – taped directly off TV – before moving through soul, heavy funk, African and Latin music, anything with a solid beat.
As well as pioneering with the turn-tables, he also held authority on the streets as the leader of the Bronx River Projects division of the Black Spades gang. Schooled on the likes of the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, NAACP, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, and inspired by the pro-black messages of Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament and James Brown, he began to move the gang away from crime. As prototype hip-hop rose and its influence spread, the Black Spades changed their name to the Organisation, and began to spread the word beyond the Bronx. By November 1973, under his leadership, they had changed their name again, to Zulu Nation.
Also since then, Kevin Donovan would forever be known as Afrikaa Bambaataa (which translates as “affectionate leader”). Though he was a keen student of African history and culture, it was ironically the trash movie Zulu, starring Michael Caine and depicting the legendary battle between British troops and a Zulu tribe in South Africa in 1879, that inspired his new name.
“I guess it might seem strange now that a film like that would prove so important, but that’s how it happened,” he says. “Zulu Nation was something to stop the gang violence that was plaguing the communities in New York City. It started in the black and Latino community and then moved on, and progressed and spread. It all began with the infinity lessons, bringing the fifth element of hip-hop, which is the knowledge, the culture and overstanding. Zulu Nation stands for knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice and equality, peace unity love and having fun, overcoming the negative to the positive, work, science, mathematics economics, faith and the wonders of God, whether you call Him many different names …”
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