Words by Jesse Serwer—

In the South Bronx of the early 1970s, just around the time when Afrika Bambaataa and his Black Spades gang were refocusing their energies into community activism and music, the leaders of a nearby Puerto Rican street organization, Ghetto Brothers, followed a similar path. But where the hip-hop pioneers of Bambaataa’s Universal Zulu Nation took their inspiration from James Brown and obscure breakbeats found in funk and rock records, the Ghetto Brothers’ were inspired by the melodies of the Beatles, doo-wop and the emerging Latin rock sound of the day.