After weeks of growing accusations, public backlash, and an organizational shake-up of his birth child Zulu Nation, Hip Hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa finally sat down to address the allegations of child molestation against him, on Wednesday (May 11). In a Fox 5 news exclusive the 59-year-old appeared in person for the first time since former NYS Democratic Committee Member-turned-author Ronald Savage, 50, went public with claims that he was sexually abused by Bam when he was 15. To date, the one-on-one has served as Bambaataa's most conspicuous response, following a succession of public statements made through his lawyer, via Rolling Stone magazine, and radio with host Ed Lover.
"What is the motivation, what is the agenda?" Bambaataa questioned before reporter Lisa Evers. "It's hard to say. You don't know what many of these people are thinking. What is behind it. Some parts are saying it could be shakeups. Certain things people might have wanted."
Although rumors about Bambaataa's sex life including affairs with men [some alleged to be under-age] have swirled within neighborhood and underground music circles for years, it wasn't until a March 30 interview, in which Savage revisited the accusations he originally penned in a 2014 memoir, that the story began to bubble. The Shot 97 episode was then followed by an April 9th feature in the New York Daily News, setting off a media blitz that pulled quotes from figures of Bambaataa's past and present disputing the validity of the accusations. On April 16 the Daily News would publish a follow up, with three more associates of the seminal organization claiming they too were minors when they were sexually assaulted in Bambaataa's residence.
"I ain't touched this brother whatsoever," Bambaataa reiterated in the interview with Fox. "The brother knows the people who he came around in my group with, and knows that he wasn't in my presence unless among those people, and he needs to go back and speak to those people who were part of our organization and deal with them. And stop all this type of craziness that they been trying to put by attacking me."
Source: fox5ny.com
