Vinyl Junkie #10 - "World Destruction"

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The dude certainly keeps busy. Afrika Bambaata is a disc jockey, a rapper, a songwriter, producer, and a pioneer of breakbeat DJ'ing. A 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee, Bambaata's 1982 single, "Planet Rock," is legendary, and "Looking for the Perfect Beat," "Renegades of Funk," and "Unity" (with James Brown) are classic. Afrika Bambaata was a man of many side projects, one of which was Time Zone, an electronic-based thing that allowed him to work with different musicians on each release. Time Zone's most well-known single, and biggest seller, was 1984's "World Destruction," the album's title track. For this particular effort, Bambaata collaborated with avant-garde bassist Bill Laswell (an F-bomb genius,) guitarist Nicky Skopelitis (a frequent Laswell contributer,) Parliament/Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, African percussionist Aiyb Dieng, and vocalist John Lydon, with whom you might be more familiar with as Sex Pistols vocalist Johnny Rotten (when Afrika Bambaata told Laswell he wanted "Someone crazy," Laswell suggested Lydon.) This fun dance tune with a message was recorded in about four and a half hours, according to Lydon, who, as Bambaata recalls, slipped back into Johnny Rotten mode for a take in which he "cussed the Queen something terrible" (which was never released but I bet it's hilarious!) The official, non-Her Royal Highness-bashing version reached #44 in the UK, and received a good amount of club play here in the States (at least, in the clubs that I frequented, you know, the cool clubs.) Call it a twelve inch single I just had to have. (Info verified by Wikipedia)