Lord Jamar: Rumors Afrika Bambaataa Gay for 20 Years, Lying About Victim

V: So the last time we talked, this news was just breaking, so I decided not to bring it up.

J: Right.

V: But now, the story has developed. And that is the Afrika Bambaataa story.

J: Hmm.

V: Now you actually know personally the first Afrika Bambaataa accuser.

J: Right. I mean, I haven't seen him in years but Bee Stinger, Ronald Savage-

V: Yeah.

J: is not just somebody I know. EVERYBODY who used to rock with Zulu Nation and Strong City Records and studios up in Allerton Avenue knows Bee Stinger.

V: Hmm. What kind of guy is he?

J: Very unassuming, y'know... I mean, you can see in his interviews slightly nervous energy. But no type of thug, you know. Like... a kinda guy that's happy to be around type of guy. Yanadameen? Umm. But definitely not somebody that I feel would just... make up some lies about a motherfucker and then go on TV with the shit and all of this type of shit.

V: He's not a grimy type dude.

J: Absolutely not.

V: That's a long history of...

J: He got nothing like... when you think of Bee Stinger you just think of a nice guy. Like, like, "yo, Bee Stinger". Like, yanadameen? Like, he's the type of person if you saw somebody picking on him, you'd wanna try and defend him type of dude.

V: So... I've interviewed, uh, Afrika Bambaataa twice. And, in fact, I think in, uh, in Belgium when I was out DJing out on tour, uh, [?] was friends with Bambaataa and we had dinner together and we went DJing and we hung out. Uh. I have nothing negative to say about Bambaataa in terms of my interactions with him.

J: Me neither!

V: Super respectful, super nice. And actually told me how much he loved my mixtapes and he'd play some of my mixes at his shows and it was like "oh my God! Afrika Bam, the godfather of hip hop plays my shit!" Like oh! I was like... y'know, winning a Grammy at the time. Um, so for a long time, I chose not to even cover this.

J: Mmhmm.

V: Because out of respect to the man, out of respect to his contribution and out of my personal experience dealing with him. But ultimately, we have to report on the news. And when it just keeps coming over and over from all these different people. Well, they first issued a statement saying that Bambaataa is no longer part of the Zulu Nation... which is like the equivalent of Steve Jobs getting kicked out of Apple, yanahmeen? And then they issued another statement recently. Did you hear about this?

J: Yes.

V: Where they issued a formal apology to the initial victims.

J: Which is beautiful because the inital response by some of the, y'know, senior members was to attack the...

V: The accusers.

J: The accusers, the victims.

V: Are you Zulu?

J: I mean technically yeah.

V: Okay.

J: Yeah.

V: You're a part of the Zulu Nation?

J: I mean, it's not like I'm, you know, paying dues and, and, and, and, I can say "yo, I'm down with this chapter" and all that. I'm part of the Nation of Gods and Earths, yanadameen? But kinda by default... by, by where we started at, yanadameen? Cos we started in that studio on Allerton Avenue with Jazzy Jay. With a bunch of Zulu dudes.

V: And Jazzy Jay's Zulu?

J: Yeah! That was, that's the one Bambaataa was handing the records to cos he was really on the Zigga Zigga. Red Alert and them was on the Zigga Zigga.

V: Okay, so Red Alert, Red Alert is Zulu.

J: Mmhmm. Absolutely.

V: I know A Tribe Called Quest is Zulu.

J: Yeah, there's a lotta, you know.

V: Who else? Who are the other prominent Zulu Nation people?

J: I mean... I don't have a whole list like that. I would assume a lot of, like, DITC type of... yanadameen? Um, but yeah, we all started up there. Showbiz and AG, Diamond D... um, y'know, Lord Finesse, dudes like that. Like, these are all people that would be in that Allerton Avenue studio. Yanadameen?

V: Lil Wayne I think was part of the Zulu Nation.

J: Well, recently...

V: He joined.

J: Yeah, yeah, [?] said that Lil Wayne was down with the Zulu Nation. I mean... y'know I got love for the Zulu Nation as far as, uh, a hip hop organization, you know? That strives to promote hip hop in different... the different elements of hip hop and... put it under one umbrella. That was a beautiful thing.

V: Right.

J: Yanadameen? If I find out that... that the motivation behind that was just so you could have a bunch of little kids around you...

V: Right.

J: That'd be some crazy shit! That means we have been Afrika Bamboozled!

V: [laughs]

J: Is what the fuck we've been!

V: Afrika Bamboozled!

J: Okay? Like, seriously.

V: So at this point, there has been a LOT of people coming forward. I remember there was this one, this one video of this, this street dude from The Bronx.

J: I talked to him on the phone. Papi.

V: Papi.

J: Mmhmm.

V: Oh, you know him?

J: I don't know him but I ended up talking to him on the phone. I was doing, uh, another interview with my boys from Harlem [?]...

V: Okay.

J: House of Conciousness, Red Pill Blue Pil, umm. They do kinda what you do but for the conscious community, yanadameen? Somehow I was doing it. So they ended up calling, uh, brother Papi on the phone. I was speaking to Papi and I was speaking to Big T, the one that beat up Bambaataa. Oh yeah. There... Big T was like a bodyguard or something for, uh...

V: For Zulu?

J: For Zulu at one point.

V: Okay, and he beat up Bambaataa why?

J: Basically, he tells a story about... they're at Bam's crib. Y'know, lotta times people watching TV in the front, y'know. Sometimes people go to the back in Bam's bedroom to watch TV. I don't know... you know, that's just where one of the TVs was at.

V: Okay.

J: He said he was back there watching TV. Might've dozed off or something. When he wakes up, he sees... allegedly... I wasn't there... but he told me and other people that he sees Bambaataa fucking jerking some nigga named Rodney off over there.

V: Hmm.

J: And so now T is like "yo what the fuck are you doing!?" And he said Bam is like "oh relax, T! Everybody does it!" Da-dada-dada! And T got to whooping some ass in that fucking room. Yahmmeen? He said he whooped Bambaataa out for that shit, and maybe anybody else that was in the room. Yahmeen?

V: Okay. What did, uh, Papi tell you?

J: The same... he said "yo, that muhfucker is..." y'know. He said "he's a pedophile! Period. He's a piece of shit!" is what he told me. Yahmeen? Um...

V: And I saw, I saw like the video of Papi. And he seemed like a real street dude.

J: BO was like "that dude" at Zulu. Like, BO had niggas scared on the street, ya understand what I'm saying?

V: Okay.

J: From what I understand, they call Papi "Baby BO". Okay?

V: He's a thorough dude.

J: He's a thorough dude. From what I understand. I've never met him, but...

V: So to have someone like that come forward and admit something so embarrassing, shameful. Like, he's not getting props for this.

J: At all.

V: At all. He gets props for having the courage to, to address his demons but like... on the street, like yanahmeen? Like... he not... he doesn't get a better reputation for this type of thing. The world that he seems to associate himself with...

J: This is not something you'd be ready... want to readily admit.

V: Exactly. So when you hear these stories and you hear the type of people who are telling these stories, y'know. These people aren't gaining anything from this. Aside from a little bit of publicity which is somewhat negative publicity as well. I mean, for example, you can't pay me to come forward and say that I've gotten molested by another man or... [laughs] yanahmeen? Like, there's no paycheck associated with that that I'd accept.

J: Who's offering the money to say this?

V: Right.

J: And why?

V: And why. [laughs]

J: Like, are you gonna do this with the hopes that there's a payday at the end of the road? On some pie-in-the-sky shit? "Let's accuse Bam of this and then maybe, y'know, there'll be a million dollars at the end of the road".

V: Right.

J: Or... if they are supposedly being paid to do this, then what organization... what person or persons has the money to pay these people whatever they paid them to basically embarrass themselves and say that they were molested by this guy? And why would you go after Bambaataa? Like, what has he done lately? For hip hop or for anything?

V: I mean, granted, Planet Rock is an all-time classic song.

J: Which I didn't like at the time.

V: You don't like Planet Rock? I love Planet Rock. And Planet Rock was one of the most sampled songs in hip hop.

J: So what?

V: Planet Rock was important. Come on. In hip hop, Planet Rock was an important song.

J: Yes... and [sighs]. Listen. [laughs] I got a whole thing about how hip hop tried to sell its soul from the minute that, like, the record companies came in. And that was one of the... that was one of the attempts.

V: Planet Rock was one of the attempts?

J: [nods] That wasn't hip hop. That wasn't the shit that I knew Soulsonic Force for. I used to listen to the tapes. A total different experience, and it's funny because I was just talking to Murda Mook the other night and he gave a good example... a good analogy. Okay, imagine.. you know, you want Pepsi. You open the shit, without looking you drink it and then milk is in there.

Vlad: [laughs]

J; Wouldn't you spit the shit out? Like, like, that's what the fuck happened when I heard Planet Rock. Cos it was nothing like the tapes they was making. The tapes they was making was some hardcore hip hop shit with breakbeats and all of this type of shit. And they were rhyming like how rappers rhymed at that time. When they came with that Planet Rock shit, it was very... sounded like experimental... like they were tryna get the white people on-board. M'kay? And it's like... hip hop was tryna do that from the beginning. See, the first hip hop show I ever went to was Soulsonic Force.

V: Hmm.

J: At Roseland.

V: M'kay.

J: And when I fu- well actually, the first show downtown. I had been to The Skate Key up in The Bronx and saw Cold Crush and them. But when I went to that shit in Roseland? And I saw fucking Soulsonic come out and they had those fucking costumes on and shit? This was nothing how I envisioned these dudes in my mind!

V: [laughs] 'Kay.

J: I was like "what the fuck is this?" So I started to realize just recently, because this all ties into the Bambaataa shit how... okay, if he was doing this, how'd he get away with it for so long? If he was doing it, that means other people probably knew. And if other people knew, why were they silent? I'll tell you why. Because they were fucking... enticed and intoxicated by the prospect of fame and fortune.

V: Hmm.

J: Especially at that time. Think about it. Like, like, you live in Bronx River, there was no fucking stars that you been around, anybody that made records and was going around the world. All of a sudden, you got a dude that lives right there amongst you... that seems like he might have the key to changing your life.

V: Right. He could take you on tour.

J: Like, if you listen to the dude in the second interview, cos there was a series of interviews, um, when this originally came out when Star had broke all this, let's keep it. He was the one that broke this. The second dude said he was like a dancer and a rapper and all of this type of shit. And he wanted Bam to help him. He said he would've did whatever Bam wanted him to do. Drugs, whatever. Bam wanted him to do some homo shit? He did it. How many people had that kind of outlook? Like, not just the ones that he might've molested but the ones that were covering it up. Cos there were plenty of people that was probably eating off of, off of, y'know? This whole Zulu Nation shit. And I don't have all their names and I don't know who exactly they are but if you knew about this shit and you didn't say nothing, you're foul.

V: Right.

J: And I don't give a fuck how long I known you, y'know. I probably know some of these dudes personally. Ya understand? If you knew? Cos it's one thing to be gay. Okay. We been heard this about Bam, that he was gay.

V: Oh really?

J: What!? This rumor's been going around for more than twenty years that he's gay.

V: Until this happened, I'd never heard that before.

J: Man, I heard this twenty years ago.

V: Twenty ye- so what exactly were you hearing?

J: That Bambaataa's gay.

V: Okay.

J: Not that he was a pedophile. That Bambaataa is gay.

V: Okay.

J: I heard that years ago. But that's some shit you don't wanna, you don't wanna, like, believe and, you know, it's not like he's doing shit that's outwardly gay that I can see, yanadameen? Although you can sense certain vibes with people. Yanadameen? Umm... ion know, ion [sigh] we kinda pushed, brushed that under the rug and said "aight, I don't see it, so... it's not proven... I'm just gonna... " but I heard it more than once. Then when this shit came out? It was like woah. Then when I saw who it was with Bee Stinger and all of that? Then when he tried to lie and say he didn't know him? I said, well, if you lie about that, you'll lie about anything.

V: So you've seen Bee Stinger... was it Ronald Savage?

J: Bee Stinger, Ronald Savage, in the same room...

V: With Bambaataa.

J: ...on multiple occasions with Bambaataa. And I'm not talking about no backrooms. I'm talking about in the studio. Matter of fact, I just was talking to... one of my mans. I'm not, I don't know if he wants his name to be said, but one of my mans from back at that time. We was just talking about this Bambaataa shit. And I said "you remember Bee Stinger, right?" He said "yeah!" I said... I said... "and you've seen him in the studio with Bambaataa, right?" He said "yo, God. Bambaataa gave me a ride home one night and Bee Stinger's the one that told me that Bambaataa's gon' give you a ride!" I said "get the fuck outta here!" Like, I don't even know that. I don't remember no shit like that. But that's how much we was in the studio. Ya understand?

V: Okay, so Bambaataa saying "I don't know who this is"...

J: That's a red flag for me...

V: That's a lie.

J: ... immediately. There's no way that you did not know who Bee Stinger was. If you call the studio and ask for Jazzy Jay? "he's not around" "Who's this?" "Bee Stinger".

V: 'Kay.

J: There's no way. When you walk straight through the door, he's sitting right there.

V: Okay.

J: There's no way! There's other people that are complicit in this. There's other people that... enabled... was enablers-

V: Right.

J: And made this... created an atmosphere for this to continue.

V: Right.

J: For this to happen.

V: Yeah, man. It's deep.

J: They're just as guilty.

V: It's deep. Y'know, cos of the way laws are set up and because of statute of limitations...

J: Right.

V: He can't get charged with anything. Unless it happens again.

J: Unless we found out about some other shit he's done recently

V: Recently. Exactly.

J: Mmhmm.

V: Unless someone comes forward recently.

J: And why would you stop if you've been doing it all of this time and never got caught?

V: Right.

J: Why would you stop?

V: He'd probably keep going.

J: Yeah, so maybe we will find some young motherfucker, yanadameen? That he's been fucking with. Who knows?

V: Yeah, man. Crazy. Crazy story, bro.

J; I'm not fucking with that Bamdusky shit.

V: [laughs] Bamdusky. And you know Bam actually did a couple interviews defending himself. He did one with Ed Love, he also did one on television. If anything, I'm surprised he's even saying anything.

J: Yeah, and all with people that he thought he was gonna be safe with. Yanadameen? He's bringing lawyers along. If there's statute of limitations, why've you got a lawyer there?

V: Hmm...

J: Also, you run with the Moors... y'know, you're supposed to be a Moor. Also, like, he runs with the Moors. So Moors don't fuck with lawyers, they're their own lawyers. Why would you have a lawyer with you?