Massively influential guy to hip hop, but what a shame.
No idea about the allegations until now, which means the news doubly suck.
I’m unable to imagine a reason why decent people might be compelled to rape children, let alone serially.
You can see some discussion of that in the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2017)
* https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/final-report
There is the position, of course, that a sexually abused child that reaches teen years or adulthood is no longer a "decent person" .. which is an interesting transition to dwell on.
Someone abused as a child who does sketchy things in their early 20s is tragic. Someone doing the same when they’re nearly 40 is a whole lot harder to dismiss. Like, you don’t make it to that age without hearing a lot of people along the way saying not to rape children.
You're right to flag ongoing and persistent shitty behaviour as unacceptable - even assigning blame there gets problematic as there absolutely is an element of "would they be less bad had they had more support on escape", but you can't be giving a pass forever.
Bloody Trolley problems .. this is one of several areas with no good choices, no easy solutions.
No one wakes up and thinks “I want to suffer today of _____.” [1] AndI want others to suffer along with me.
That said, perhaps the universe is binary? Perhaps evil, pure evil does exist? Perhaps there’s no to stopping evil than “just say no”? It’s hard to say.
[1] Insert mental, physical a/o spiritual illness here.
Victims of sexual abuse thus often are haunted by “fantasies” of abuse but avoiding the victim position; the trap is to identify with the fantasies. All too often, they’ve been told it is their fault, they wanted it etc, so the imagined replay “proves the original perpetrator right”.
The only way to break the circle seems to be to fully go into the fantasy and process the victim position, with support of a well-meaning presence (typically a therapist but in another reality it could be friends or family).
We didn't play Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records. That's about all a radio station could do. Can't state what legally speaking were merely rumors on the air without facing problems. All you can do is not support them commercially, which we did.
I'm still trying to digest all the s3xual abuse allegations against Bam later in life.
RIP Bam
As much as I love live music after a while it just sort of became a job, but every now and again an incredible musician would come through and I wouldn’t know until I showed up for my shift and I asked my coworkers who was playing that night.
One night I come in and my jaw drops when find out it’s fucking DJ Africa Bambaataa! Now I’m not big into hip hop but I had listened to a few of his albums and I knew his music was phenomenal and I was shocked such a legend was playing in my town.
The crazy part is only like 100 people showed up out of a capacity of like 800 but every single one of those people could dance.
The venue had an old sound booth that was attached to ceiling and was accessible with a rickety old spiral staircase, as it was so slow that night I spent most of my time up there just soaking in that experience.
I’ve seen a lot of live shows in my day but that one stands out.
Point of fact (lots of data), is that most child abuse is the standard hetero variety (and not only men abusing girls). I know many folks that were victims of abuse. It’s awful, no matter who does it, and it sucks to see it being used as fodder for personal hatreds.
I don’t know this guy, but it’s not like he’s exactly alone. Lots of A-listers have some pretty ugly skeletons. Sometimes, escaping a rough past, is what gives them the drive that results in their success.
French ex rapper Solo mentionned in his book he witnessed and was himself groomed and abused at 17 by Afrika Bambaataa and all Bambaataa's entourage knew about that and just chose to either ignore or even facilitate it. It seemed to have been an open secret within at least NYC hip hop circle and the Zulu Nation in general which chose to ignore and even attack the victims who speaked out.