A sexual abuse advocacy group called Hip Hop Stands With Survivors is calling for the resignation of Universal Hip Hop Museum’s executive director Rocky Bucano and the end to taxpayer funding for the museum, due to its affiliation with Afrika Bambaataa over allegations he sexually abused and trafficked a minor.
The Universal Hip Hop Museum has been hailed by Bronx politicos and Mayor Eric Adams as a future tourist hub and is slated to receive $9.75 million in city taxpayer funds, on top of the more than $30 million that the organization has received in federal, state and city funding since the nonprofit museum’s inception in 2014.
The rap pioneer Bambaataa is alleged of using his Bronx home as well as his group Zulu Nation’s headquarters to sexually abuse and traffic numerous minors from 1991-1995. In 2021, Bambaataa — real name Lance Taylor — and self-proclaimed hip-hop awareness group Universal Zulu Nation were sued and accused of sex trafficking and prostituting a 12-year-old boy to older men during that four-year span.
The victim claims he met Taylor in 1991 and became a member of the Zulu Nation security as a child.
The victim, listed in court documents as John Doe, was able to file a lawsuit under the New York’s Child Victims Act, which was signed into New York state law in 2019. The law, which expired in August 2021, opened a one-time look back window for survivors to file civil lawsuits seeking compensation for the sexual abuse they suffered as children.
Allegations of sexual abuse against Taylor go as far back as the 1970s. Bambaataa is often credited as one of the leading voices that clamored for a physical museum to commemorate the borough’s status as the foundation of hip hop.
Hassan Campbell and other men, whose names were not disclosed, also testified alleging child sexual abuse against Bambaata, claiming the rapper had multiple locations where he had sex with underage boys, including at 1609 E. 174th St., which is public…
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