Afrika Bambaataa Vinyl Collection
About this collection
This digital collection contains images of selected 12" vinyl records from the collection of Afrika Bambaataa, one of Hip Hop's formative DJs. The records selected for this digital resource are those that he numbered, signed with his name, or otherwise annotated when he acquired them between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. The collection offers nearly 1,400 of the earliest 12" records Bambaataa owned, representing a small subset of his famed record collection. According to Bambaataa, starting around 1980, he abandoned the practice of numbering his vinyl when his collection became too large to track in this manner.
The images offered here are a small part of Bambaataa's larger archive, which arrived at Cornell University in 2013. Totaling nearly 600 cubic feet, Bambaataa's archive includes not only his music collection (more than 30,000 of his vinyl records as well as cassette tapes and CDs), but papers such as notebooks, manuscripts, scrapbooks, lyrics sheets, set lists, photographs, flyers, stage costume accessories, unique audio and video recordings, magazines, books, and other publications, as well as materials documenting the activities of the Universal Zulu Nation, the influential world-wide organization Bambaataa founded in the 1970s.
Historical context
Bambaataa's early vinyl records offer essential information about Hip Hop culture’s many visual and sonic influences during its formative years. It includes an eclectic mix of soul, funk, rock, R&B, disco, and African and Latin music—genres that formed the basis of Hip Hop’s musical identity before recorded "rap music" was popularized by the entertainment industry beginning in 1979. This online collection also presents a diverse tapestry of album cover art, documenting the era's many looks, attitudes, and ideas.
Bambaataa's archive is part of the Cornell Hip Hop Collection. It opened for public research in October of 2019 upon the completion of cataloging, preservation, and descriptive work supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.
Using the collection
The digital collection can be browsed in the order Bambaaataa acquired his records. It can also be searched by title, artist, or by categories of alterations or annotations such as "Zulu Nation Sure Shots," albums on which he indicated his preferred tracks, or albums that have had their labels obscured to prevent people from identifying them. Other details have also been catalogued, such the presence of two copies of a record housed together. Because some records were dispersed or lost over the years, there are gaps in the numbered sequence.
Questions about this digital collection or about access to Bambaataa's larger archive can be sent to rareref@cornell.edu.
More information
- Collection steward
- Katherine Reagan, Ernest L. Stern '56 Curator or Rare Books & Manuscripts and Ben Ortiz, Collection Specialist, Cornell Hip Hop Collection
- Metadata creation
- Afrika Bambaataa, Joleen Beiser, Jazz Burns, Roswitha Clark, Beth Anne Kelly, Margaret Nichols, Ben Ortiz, Katherine Reagan, Tracey Snyder
- Funding
- National Endowment for the Humanities, Documenting the Origins of Hip Hop: Arrangement, Description, and Access for the Archive of Afrika Bambaataa, awarded 2016.
- Credits
- This collection overview was prepared by Katherine Reagan, Ernest L Stern '56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts and Ben Ortiz, Collection Specialist, Cornell Hip Hop Collection, 2019; last updated in 2025.
- Collection sources