Hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa has been sued by a man who claims the musician abused and sex trafficked him from 1991 to 1995, when the accuser was 12 years old.
The lawsuit, filed in August under the New York Child Victims Act alleges that “from 1991, when the Plaintiff was merely 12 years old, to 1995, the Plaintiff was repeatedly sexually abused and sex trafficked at the hands of” Bambaataa, referred to in the lawsuit by his birth name Lance Taylor.
The suit alleges that Bambaataa allowed the then 12-year-old John Doe to access the home gym within Bambaataa’s Bronx apartment. It details that the DJ “would comment about Plaintiff’s muscular body and would touch Plaintiff on the shoulders, biceps, and torso.”
It goes on to allege that Bambaataa went on to “inappropriately touch Plaintiff in his private areas,” which led to Bambaataa inviting the plaintiff to watch pornographic videos at his apartment, where he would “encourage Plaintiff to masturbating [sic],” which soon after “progressed to mutual masturbation” that, the lawsuit claims, “progressed to sodomy.”
The lawsuit alleges that Doe “became a victim of sex trafficking.” That Bambaataa would transport Doe to other locations and offer him for sex to other adult men. Doe claims that during these encounters, Bambaataa would watch as Doe was “sodomized by other adult men.”
At the time these alleged incidents took place Bambaataa would have been 33 or 34 years old. The plaintiff filed the lawsuit under the New York State 2019 Child Victims Act, which opened up a limited time window for adults to sue over childhood sexual abuse, regardless of when the incidents allegedly occurred.
Legal causes of action in the lawsuit are assault, civil battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence.
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Doe claims he has “suffered physical injury, severe and permanent emotional distress, mental anguish, depression and embarrassment” as a result of Bambaataa’s alleged abuse and trafficking. He says that because of the alleged abuse, he has been “unable to keep a steady job.”
In 2016, Bronx activist and former New York State Democratic Committee member Ronald Savage alleged that Bambaataa sexually abused him several times in 1980, when Savage was 15. Savage alleged that the DJ forced him to engage in oral sex.
Following the allegations coming to light, Bambaataa issued a statement, writing that he wanted to “personally deny any and all allegations of any type of sexual molestation of anyone.” A lawyer representing the DJ called the allegations “defamatory” and “false.” In the weeks following, three other men came forward against Bambaataa, alleging similar claims.
The lawsuit also cites Zulu Nation, Universal Zulu Nation, and XYZ Corp. as defendants. Alleging that they helped Bambaataa “target, groom, and sexually abuse children”
In a statement provided to The Source, Zulu Nation wrote: “Nothing has changed since 2016 when these decades-ago accusations first surfaced.
“This is a personal matter for Afrika Bambaataa and his lawyers to deal with and has absolutely nothing to do with the 10-years long UZN-DOCA mission, programs, and projects which continue in the revolutionary legacy of both the Black Panther Party & the Young Lords Party to ‘Serve the People, Body & Soul.’”
