(AllHipHop News) Afrika Bambaataa, who just completed a three-year term as a visiting scholar at the Cornell University, will have his complete DJ collection archived by the Cornell Library Hip-Hop Collection.
Thanks to a grant of ($260,000) from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bambaataa’s records will be available to researchers, students and the public, this according to the Cornell Chronicle.
Known as the “Godfather of Hip-Hop” and the “Father of Electro-Funk” Bambatta is an international recognized pioneer of Hip-Hop.
Before becoming a famous hip hop DJ, in the 1960’s and 1970’s Afrika Bambaataa was the warlord of a Bronx gang named the Black Spades.
He went on to form the Universal Zulu Nation on November 12, 1973.
Afrika is reportedly the one that contrived Hip-Hop’s name and coined the basic elements of the genre (DJing, rapping, breakdancing and graffiti art).
“This unique, hand-inscribed documentation by one of hip-hop’s founding DJs will enable students and scholars to reconstruct hip-hop’s invention through its most celebrated and influential collection of records,” said Katherine Reagan on behalf of Cornell. “In preserving Bambaataa’s archive and making it open and accessible, Cornell University Library will support a growing body of international scholars and educators who study hip-hop not only for its global influence on popular music, art and style, but its role in articulating social and political issues.”
The 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s record collection includes hundreds of boxes amounting to 450 containers with 20,000 vinyl records, most of which are annotated by Bambaataa himself.
Whats more amazing is that the records are in a chronological order by the date of purchase.
Ultimately, Cornell’s seeks to create a complete list of Bambaataa’s legendary vinyl that will be available to the public with images of album sleeves fully annotated.