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?