I am one of the founders of Hip-Hop along with my brothers Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash.
Afrika BambaataaIn this time, we incorporate money and media, and it's split up like apartheid, where when you say "hip-hop," you think just rap records. People might have forgot about all the other elements in hip-hop. Now we're back out there again, trying to get people back to the fifth element, the knowledge. To know to respect the whole culture, especially to you radio stations that claim to be hip-hop and you're not, because if you was a hip-hop radio station, why do you just play one aspect of hip-hop and rap, which is gangsta rap?
Afrika BambaataaThere are a lot of true culturalists who respect where they're from, but you have some who are just all about the benjamins, like, "I wanna get my money, I wanna get mine, you get yours, more power to you," and they don't care. That deals with the whole thing of life, whether you're agreeable or disagreeable, the yin and the yang, the evil versus good. That's how it is in the music industry. There are people who care for the whole culture and what they're doing, and have love for it, and are not into just making money.
Afrika BambaataaHip-hop went through different stages, from the beginning in the streets of the Bronx, to the whole Tri-State area and then to the rest of the United States and the rest of the world.
Afrika BambaataaPowers that be can't stay in control if you have everybody in love and in tune with each other and with the planet, and in tune with the electrons and the dark matter that's moving at the speed of light. That won't work in their interest. They gotta get you ready for your microchip.
Afrika Bambaataa