“By the 1970s and 1980s, landlords were burning apartment buildings to collect insurance money instead of investing in repairs, leaving low-income mostly Puerto Rican and Black families without socioeconomic opportunity.”

“Bambaataa had Jamaican and Barbadian heritage, and he was raised in a low-income public housing complex by his mother, according to an interview he gave Frank Broughton in 1998.”

“He was exposed to music at an early age through his mother's vinyl record collection.”

“He was deeply inspired by the work of Kool Herc, who is often deemed the father of hip-hop.”

“He also was one of the first DJs to use beat breaks, incorporating the iconic Roland TR-808 drum machine.”

“At that time, Bambaataa said in previous interviews that he was able to leverage his affiliation with the local street gang the Black Spades in order to form a group he called the Zulu Nation, a nod to a South African ethnic group that he drew inspiration from.”

“Later, Bambaataa changed the name to the Universal Zulu Nation to signal the inclusion of “all people from the planet earth.””