| ▲ | contubernio 8 hours ago |
| Bambaataa was a serial sexual abuser and everybody in the rap scene knew it back in the day (early 90s) same way everyone knew about R. Kelly (I ran a rap program on the radio in 92-94). |
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| ▲ | Bayart an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers.
For example a lot of early bluesmen are known to be highly problematic and the completely clean ones are rare (Howlin' Wolf is one).
I've been recently experimenting with rape as a structuring force in sociology and anthropology (when I say "experimenting", I'm mean as a work hypothesis) and I'm now thinking it's more determinative at scale than murder. After all murder takes someone out of the pool. I wouldn't go around DJing an abuser's music but I find it insufficient to stop at signaling about it and cancelling. That's where the work begins, not where it ends. Stopping at jailing abusers will force them to hide better and prevent the more cowardly ones from acting, but it won't stop before the process behind it is fully understood, internalized and treated.
I don't know the story behind it but there's a very high chance Afrika Bambaataa was abused as a child. |
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| ▲ | Throaway199999 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It was just a symptom of the social standing of males and the lack of interest in prosecuting rape. | |
| ▲ | scorpionfeet 30 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sadly a reoccurring problem with lots of white rock and roll “heroes” from Aerosmith to Led Zeppelin to Iggy Pop to Lynyrd Skynyrd to The Cars to The Stones… | |
| ▲ | close04 26 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers I think we have enough evidence these days to confidently say race has nothing to do with it. For people who get enough power and influence they'll either become role models from a position of power, get followers and maybe even act as mentors to their subsequent victims (priests, teachers, various artists, activists and other "influencers"), or they're rich enough to think/know they can get away with anything (everyone in the Epstein files). |
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| ▲ | nunez 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Wow, had no idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrika_bambaataa#Child_sexual_... Massively influential guy to hip hop, but what a shame. |
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| ▲ | rafaelgoncalves an hour ago | parent [-] | | this surprised me as well, the more you know the respect for his influence diminishes, really sad. |
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| ▲ | torben-friis 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Damn. As someone half the world away I just knew him as a pioneer, news didn't travel enough to know anything about the personal lives of artists in the early 00s. No idea about the allegations until now, which means the news doubly suck. |
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| ▲ | echelon_musk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Any tape rips of your show we can listen to? |
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| ▲ | poisonarena 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Imagine if a rap artist was a gang member, armed robber or murderer. That would be even worse, and I would never listen to their music. |
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| ▲ | kstrauser 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I can imagine scenarios where decent people in tough environments might be compelled to join a gang, rob, or even murder. That doesn’t make it ok, but it makes it at least understandable. I’m unable to imagine a reason why decent people might be compelled to rape children, let alone serially. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Well, if it gets normalised during childhood, then it frequently occurs during teen years and adulthood. 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. | | |
| ▲ | kstrauser 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That makes it more understandable, but he lost a trial that said he was raping a child when he was 38 years old. 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. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Oh, please, don't think I'm making any excuses here .. but I was around and about the evidence management side of a five deep dive into institutional childhood abuse ... the various things that went down tend to explain a lot of early following behaviour once some kind of distance from early abuse is made. 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. | |
| ▲ | chiefalchemist 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If only human behavior was that simple. The DSM-5 is filled with diseases of the mind. Choice often isn’t as cut and dry as we would like to believe. 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. |
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| ▲ | 47282847 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There is also the theory that it serves as a reenactment of one’s own abuse. Trying to find peace and return to safety by replaying the scene, this time not as helpless victim but perpetrator: in control. 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). |
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| ▲ | lynx97 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > decent people in tough environments ... murder You find an excuse for MURDER? You are definitely not a decent person. | | | |
| ▲ | redsocksfan45 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | poisonarena 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | vr46 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism | | | |
| ▲ | watwut 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Known murderer and robber rap artists are in prison. | | | |
| ▲ | redsocksfan45 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | sjtgraham 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| What did you do about it at the time? |
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| ▲ | contubernio 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Not a reasonable question. All my information was third hand at best. 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. | | | |
| ▲ | dbcooper 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A friend of mine has worked in TV and film for decades. Many times he has told me about rumoured offenders (typically after they are arrested), but other than avoiding working on productions with them what are his choices? Trying to do a completely ridiculous "citizen's arrest"? | |
| ▲ | 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | chris_wot 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The same thing you did. What sort of question is that? |
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