Famed South Bronx DJ Afrika Bambaataa and other figures from the early days of hip-hop are returning to campus April 14-15 for an academic and musical symposium, "Born in the Bronx: Afrika Bambaataa, Hip-Hop & Radical Peace."

Bambaataa, dancer (B-boy) Jorge Pabon (a.k.a. Popmaster Fabel) and photographer Joseph Conzo Jr. will participate in the celebration of hip-hop history. Public events include a panel discussion, April 14 at 1:30 p.m. in Barnes Hall, and a sold-out DJ set that evening at Theta Delta Chi, the fraternity house known as Thumpty.

The panel also features author and historian Johan Kugelberg, whose research collection is the basis of Cornell Library's extensive hip-hop archive. He will introduce the participants, including hip-hop scholars Sean Eversley Bradwell, Ph.D. '08, an assistant professor in Ithaca College's Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity; and Cornell assistant professor of Africana studies Travis Gosa.

A question-and-answer session will follow the panel, which is presented by the Atkinson Forum of the American Studies Program at Cornell.

Conzo's documentation of the Bronx in the 1970s and early 1980s is featured prominently in Kugelberg's 2007 book, "Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip-Hop." Kugelberg donated the historical, recorded and visual material he gathered for the book to Cornell in 2007, including about 800 vinyl records and Conzo's photographs.

All of the panelists were on hand in the fall of 2008 for events on campus celebrating the opening of the library's then-7,000-piece collection of historical materials on hip-hop and an all-star panel with rappers Grandmaster Caz and Roxanne Shanté, DJs Tony Tone and Grandwizzard Theodore, and Jeff Chang, author of "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-hop Generation."

Bambaataa's 1982 hit single "Planet Rock" defined the sound of hip-hop and electro funk and helped spread the music and the culture worldwide. As one of the originators of break-beat DJing, his turntable style inspired his contemporaries and succeeding generations of DJs. The cultural explosion of hip-hop during the '80s had a lasting effect on music, art and performance, and on activism, political expression and urban planning.

Bambaataa is scheduled to visit the rare book vault in Kroch Library and attend a father-son event at the Southside Community Center in Ithaca. He and other panelists will also visit the Discovering Hip-Hop class taught by associate professor of music Steve Pond and music librarian Bonna Boettcher. The course "addresses the dual topics of early hip-hop in the Bronx and archival research focusing on the Kugelberg collection," Pond said.

Cornell's hip-hop archive http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/hiphop/ now boasts more than 10,000 pieces -- about 7,000 sound recordings, a photographic archive, textile art, books, magazines and ephemera including hundreds of original posters and show flyers.

The collection is the largest such archive documenting early hip-hop culture and its four cornerstone art forms: breaking (dance), MCing (vocal performance, such as rapping), DJing (turntable performance and techniques, e.g. scratching) and tagging (graffiti art).

"One final element that has become more a part of hip-hop is knowledge -- knowledge about the historical roots of it," Pond said. "The cultural roots go deep, into a time much earlier than the mid-'70s. There is also the cultural context of life in the Bronx and New York generally. There are so many different elements of the scene that led to this culture. None of it would have existed without the people present in the Bronx, the presence of urban renewal, and the artistic ingenuity of the artists doing this stuff."

The Atkinson Forum, funded by David '60 and Patricia Atkinson, brings thinkers, actors, musicians, writers, dancers and artists to the Cornell campus.