Like Savage, Hassan "Poppy" Campbell, 39, grew up in a dysfunctional home and was surrounded by poverty and drug and alcohol addiction. He described life in the hardscrabble Bronx River Houses by saying: "One day you're at a party; the next day you're getting shot at, or you're on welfare." Campbell, who is a decade younger than Savage, was also drawn to Bambaataa. In the late 80s, when he was just 12 or 13, Campbell began hanging out with the Zulus and, like Savage, immersed himself in the burgeoning b-boy culture.
Campbell lived in the Bronx River Houses with his mother and five siblings. His mom, he said, was "abusive" and suffered from mental illness. Like Savage, Campbell said the parties at the Center provided a healthy distraction from the chaos at home. He often fought with his mother and would run away, sometimes staying at Bambaataa's house when he had nowhere else to go. He too called Bambaataa a "father figure."
"He took care of me," Campbell said. "He made sure I had everything I needed. And he made sure my mom had everything she needed.
"Bam was like the godfather," he added. "A lot of parents in our community were on drugs, and Bam took advantage of that."
That trust took an insidious turn, he said, when he was just 13. Campbell said another man had previously molested him, which "made it easier for Bam to molest me."
He described a story very similar to Savage's: It began with Bambaataa showing him a book of pictures of naked men engaged in sex acts. The pornography viewing escalated to touching and, later, oral sex. The alleged abuse, he said, was "constant" and went on for years.
"This wasn't no onetime thing," he said. "This was an ongoing thing for several years."
Campbell kept the alleged abuse secret. He said it eventually stopped when he "broke away" from Bambaataa in his late teens and turned his anger toward the gangs and criminals on the Bronx streets.
"I started acting like a wild animal," he said.
He recalled the way the anger festered and the devastating effects it had on his life. Campbell told me that he became a criminal as a teenager and started carrying guns. In 1993, he was charged with second-degree murder for the killing of a Bronx man. He went on the run but was caught and arrested in Connecticut in 1994. His co-defendant was found not guilty, and Campbell pleaded out to assault, landing him a three-year sentence.
Bambaataa, he said, "took care" of him while he was in jail and when he was released.
"When I came home from jail, Bam took me shopping and stuff like that," he recalled. "Bam was like your uncle who paid your way through college, but molested you."
According to Campbell, he was locked up again for parole violations and attempted murder, and in 2000 was charged with shooting three people in the Bronx, in a case he claimed was dismissed. He said he was charged in a Bronx River murder in 2004 and spent a month in jail before that case was also dismissed.