Uniting Gangs Through Hip-Hop | History or Hype?

In his famous 1982 article," Africa Bambaataa’s Hip Hop," journalist Steven Hager claimed that the Zulu Nation was “a more sophisticated version of the Black Spades, a gang into music and dance instead of violence.” Even though Bambaataa, who founded the Zulu Nation, is quoted saying the Black Spades died out because of girls getting sick of them and police cracking down on their activities, Hager fantastically claims they suddenly disappeared in 1975 “because something better came along to replace the gangs. That something was eventually called ‘hip hop.’”
But is it true that Afrika Bambaataa steered the Black Spades away from violence and toward hip-hop? Did he really unite the outlaw gangs of the Bronx and bring peace to the region? Did's hip-hop's emergence have anything at all to do with gangs?

[@blackpalacemusic]

Its the other way around. The gang truce lead to the development of Hip Hop, because now people could go to different neighborhoods and show off their talents without fear of violence. The could now also learn things from other neighborhoods.

[@MyIdeas97]

The '71 Hoe Ave truce? It was an ATTEMPTED truce. It didn't work. News reports of the time and people who were there all testify to that, despite what hyped up documentarians try to suggest. Violence and crime only increased in the Bronx going into the '70s. Even after the gangs faded out of fashion in the mid-70s, the area didn't become peaceful. The Hoe Ave thing is an easily refutable myth.

[@blackpalacemusic]

@@MyIdeas97 the truce was in 1971, not "going into the 70s" . Why do think the gangs turned in to crews? (Black Spades became Casanovas/Zulu kings etc)

[@MyIdeas97]

@@blackpalacemusic Again, the attempted truce in '71, as valiant as an effort as it was, simply did not work. Anyone can do a database search of gangs and bronx in those years and see that gang activity continued and even went up after that. The reason the outlaw gangs faded away by the mid-70s is addressed in this video by the practitioners themselves. None of it had to do with Hoe Ave.

[@blackpalacemusic]

@@MyIdeas97 Statistics don't tell the entire story. What occurred in the early 1970s that lead to the Bronx become a hub for youth culture? Prior to that time people were afraid to go to the Bronx because of the gangs.

[@user-uc9ne8ow2u]

Kool Keith so nice with it only he can say it the way he said it😂

[@albertgallanosa8600]

RIP Karate Charlie of the Ghetto Brothers

[@Willesden_Rab1_TV]

Can you count, suckers? I say, the future is ours... if you can count! You're standing right now with nine delegates from 100 gangs. And there's over a hundred more. That's twenty-thousand hardcore members. Forty-thousand, counting affiliates, and 20,000 more, not organized, but ready to fight: 60,000 soldiers! Now, there ain't but 20,000 police in the whole town. Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Can you dig iiiiiiiiiiiiiit? Everybody : Yeeeaaaaahh!! 😂