Originally founded by Afrika Bambaataa, in the South Bronx, The Universal Zulu Nation has grown internationally and was instrumental in taken hip hop around the world.  
Afrika Bambaataa, grew up in Bronx River Projects.   He joined the Bronx River division of the Black Spades gang in the southeast Bronx, where he soon became warlord. Always a music enthusiast (taking up trumpet and piano for a short time at Adlai E. Stevenson High School), Bam was also a serious record collector, who collected everything from R&B to Rock. 

In the West Bronx, 1973, DJ Kool Herc, recognized as the father of hip hop was playing funk records by James Brown, and later just playing the instrumental breaks of those records.   Inspired by Kool Herc and noticing that he had many of the same records Herc was playing, Bam began to play them, and expanded his own repertoire to include other types of music as well.

As the Black Spades gang began to die out toward 1973, Bam began forming a performing group at Stevenson High School, first calling it the Bronx River organization, then later The Organization.  Bam had deejayed with his own sound system at the Bronx River Community Center, with Mr. Biggs, Queen Kenya, and Cowboy, who accompanied him in performances in the community. Because of his prior status in the Black Spades, Bam already had an established party crowd drawn from former members of the gang. 

About a year later he reformed a group, calling it the Zulu Nation (inspired by his wide studies on African history at the time).  Five b-boys (break dancers) joined him who he called the Shaka ZULU Kings, a.k.a. ZULU Kings; there were also the Shaka Zulu Queens. As Bam continued deejaying, more DJs, rappers, break dancers, graffiti writers, and artists followed his parties, and he took them under his wing and made them members of his Zulu Nation.

Due to his street credibility, Afrika Bambaataa could roll the party into other parts of NYC like Harlem and Brooklyn without trouble from rival gangs.
Soon Bambaataa and UZN would spread Hip Hop not only to the other boroughs in New York City, but to other cities in the US and eventually to countries around the world.

After his hit sensation "Planet Rock and Looking For the Perfect Beat" in 1982, Bambaataa organized the first international Hip Hop tour of B-Boys, Graffiti Artists, DJs and Emcees providing the world with the first glimpse of the Cultural Revolution called Hip Hop.? The tour was a major achievement and a harbinger of the success Hip Hop would come to have around the globe.

Afrika Bambaataa was the first to use the newly coined term Hip Hop to encompass all the elements of the music, graffiti, dance, rap,dj's and knowledge; thereby identifying Hip Hop as a unique culture unto itself. 

The mission of the UZN is to spread knowledge, peace, heritage, music and awareness to the people of the world.

.