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In March, Ron Savage shocked the music-loving world when he appeared on DJ Star's Star Chamber YouTube channel to accuse Afrika Bambaataa of sexual molestation as far back as the early 1980s. Savage later spoke, in greater detail, to the New York Daily News, and, now VICE has interviewed Savage, along with two other men who have come forward with similar accusations.
Savage describes meeting Bambaataa at a neighborhood hip-hop party in the Bronx River Houses. "To me, he was cool. He was like a god," Savage told VICE's Dave Wedge. "It was like, 'This is the guy I had always heard about.' Everybody knew who Afrika Bambaataa was back then." Savage became a "crate boy" for Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation crew, carrying records to gigs for the DJs. Savage says that Bambaataa molested him in 1980 and abused him at least four or five more times.
Hassan Campbell, and a man who is only identified by his first name "Troy" in the article, grew up in the Bronx River Houses and were also drawn to Bambaataa through the regular parties that occurred in the public housing complex. All three victims that spoke to VICE for the story claim that rumors of the abuse had been common knowledge in the Bronx for decades. They also told Wedge of "a decades-long cover-up by the Zulu Nation and a hidden network of victims whose lives were allegedly haunted by death threats, suicides, drug abuse, and violence."
As Wedge notes in the story, Bambaataa is still at-large, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. Read the full article now on VICE.