Afrika Bambaataa, the Bronx-born DJ and rapper widely credited with helping shape hip hop's earliest years, has died at 67 after complications from cancer. Sources with direct knowledge said he died at about 3 am in Pennsylvania on 9 April, bringing to a close one of the culture's most influential and most contested lives.
For decades, Bambaataa's name stood near the centre of hip hop's origin story, linked to block parties, breakbeats and a vision of music as community power. His death is likely to reopen a conversation that has long sat uneasily beside those achievements, as his later years were overshadowed by serious abuse allegations and legal trouble.
