As the old saying goes, those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In hip hop, a wilful amnesia about the innovations of Afrika Bambaataa, from the early '80s to the present day on wax, and from the early '70s onwards in the ether, means those selfsame innovations have been absorbed, spat out, and repeated ad infinitum. You can still hear Soul Sonic Force's Planet Rock in many guises to this present day: in whole genres of electronic music inside and outside hip hop, from electro onwards, through house music, electronica, Miami bass and techno. So, who is this genial man from the South Bronx who, while always in danger of being forgotten, is ever-present in hip hop now? The main man who adopted the name Afrika Bambaataa in 1973 and has all but erased his real name; the visionary DJ, performer and producer who has been spinning eclectic DJ sets, known as the Master of Records and the Godfather of Hip Hop from then until now; who somehow managed to find time along the way to front groups like Soul Sonic Force, Time Zone, Shango, Hydraulic Funk and others.

He is Afrika Bambaataa and he's here today in Bristol after a mini-tour that saw him deejaying at the Bloc electronic music festival in Minehead. He is compact, rotund and static as he talks about the old days and the present days, with digressions into the future. He couldn't be less animated, but his words cut through the static in the quiet bar of this unlikely hotel setting.

He says he's Afrika Bambaataa 24 hours a day - "That's who I am. Living, walking, breathing" - and even his down time sounds like work. "Sometimes [I'm] reading books," he says when asked what he does to relax, "or still working in the community. Dealing with the streets and helping people. Not just in New York City, but around the world."

The all-wise and all-knowing Afrika Bambaataa was inspired to start hosting parties by DJ Kool Herc right at the inception of hip hop. What does he think of its hydra-headed, multi-tentacled, billion dollar industry present form?

"Well, hip hop is now controlled by corporations", he says, "Most people really, when they mention hip hop, they do not know what they're talking about. They look at hip hop and use the word hip hop and they just think about rappers. That's just one part of the elements of hip hop. Most people don't look at the whole cultural movement of hip hop, with the DJs, the B-boys, the B-Girls, the aerosol writers and the graffiti writers, and the emcees, as well as the fifth element that holds it all together, which is Knowledge Culture Overstanding, as we say in the Universal Zulu Nation."

Bambaataa is the founder of the Universal Zulu Nation, a movement that evolved out of gangs and has existed since the mid '70s. Bambaataa himself was a warlord with the South Bronx gang, the Black Spades, when he had a moment of epiphany upon returning from a visit to Africa. He changed his name, adopting that of a Zulu war chief, and set about turning the negativity of the gang lifestyle into positivity. But, what inspired him to start the Universal Zulu Nation? It might be simplistic to just see this as a way out of the gang lifestyle.

"Seeing many of the groups before us," he explains, his monologues alternating between clear-headed exposition and a kind of note form all but opaque to outsiders, "and taking from the teachings of the Honourable Elijah Mohammed, Brother Ali and the Moorish Science Temple, and then seeing other groups like the Black Panther Party that were out there fighting for justice. Taking all these teachings and hearing the great Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, John Lennon, and many of the other groups that were speaking wisdom in they songs. Culminating in a group [the Universal Zulu Nation] that would pull all peoples together. We started first with the black and Latino community, and then to the rest of the world. And then, seeing that movie with Michael Caine and them from back in the day called Zulu: seeing the Zulus fighting for what was theirs and what was they land against the British imperialists that were trying to put a poll tax on them. The film was an excellent movie and in the end you saw the Zulus respected them as warriors.

"[The Universal Zulu Nation] came out of the Black Spades, and two of the other major gangs that were happening in the city at the time," he continues. "Then the teachings of the Nation of Islam and many other organisations tried to change the ways of many of the gang-bangers into a more positive direction. When we did it, and it started stretching from city to city, town to town and country to country, then we had a lot of people from lots of different nationalities, different religions and races that joined."

According to Bam, if you just search on the internet you'll find many different Zulu Nations from around the world still in operation. Some deal with strictly hip hop, others deal with law, and yet others aim to free political prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal. So how does he feel about the west coast hip hop explosion, which has taken gang relations to a new plateau? West coast hip hop seems to be more gang-identified, whether Crip or Blood, and the strain of hip hop that emerged from the mid '80s to the early '90s meant that people rarely transcended their initial gang affiliations, which could come from something as simple as merely residing in a neighbourhood. Bam, without missing a beat, blames the media.

"A lot of that, we've got to blame the media and radio programmers who programmed the minds of the masses of youth by just playing a one-sided part of hip hop," he argues. "We never say you can't speak words you wanna say in your songs, but we say bring back the balance of Myatt, which is an ancient Kemetic word known as Egypt today. We're saying play the new with the old, the old with the new. So, if you've got any records that talk about gangstas, rap, or in any type of music that talks about fight, kill and shoot 'em up, or call a woman the B-word or using the N-word; we're saying [also] play some records that talk about some love, peace and unity - about some revolutionary rap or thing. All this I guess has to do with someone pulling the strings and saying 'this is what the people wanna hear'. So, they wanna hear gangstas and you showing them strictly gangsta videos? This is a form of mind-control. You gotta look at the word 'program'; 'Program Director'. What are you programming to the people?"

Bambaataa says he's known as the Master of Records just because he's always played so many different and diverse types of music. He could take the trajectory of a DJ set anywhere 'cos he has such a large selection of records - funk, soul, R&B, rock, jazz, classical, reggae, soca: you name it, he's played it. What does he find himself listening to in 2009?

"I cover all bases", he replies, "Still listen to everything, wherever the feeling or the vibe takes me. One day it could be jazz and funky music and hip hop, soul. The next day it could be some mellow mood music or chanting and vibrations."

He's a little vague on where he's been for the last ten years, beyond saying that he's travelled the globe and that the reason people might not have heard Shake It and Everyday People, two cuts he's been involved with very recently, is that they've mainly been accessible via downloading on the internet. Yet he brightens up when queried about how he feels about Soul Sonic Force's classic Planet Rock in the current climate.

"It's amazing to see the survival of this record and still see the reactions from way back then to way back now," he enthuses. "Just still making people go crazy. And seeing that it was the most sampled record ever in hip hop history and seeing people still taking from that same beat and groove, or taking something from that record, and recreating something new for theyselves, or some people just straight up jack it and do they whole song offa it...

"We didn't sample Kraftwerk," he explains. "We had a great keyboardist by the name of John Robie who was a master and he just tore that synthesiser where it sounded like Kraftwerk. And that became the birth of the electro-funk sound, which everybody took from electro-funk and named electronica or the real funk or Miami bass or house, and everything came from that."

What's often intriguing, in retrospect at least, is the distance between the records Bam played everywhere in his DJ sets and his recorded output. Which isn't to say his recorded output wouldn't later fit into his DJ sets, but, at each initial inception, the records always stood out. Was this by design?

"That's down to the different styles of people I worked with and the different music I had before me," he reasons. "Sometimes, if I'm in the country of Spain, and I hear certain flamenco records, I might record a flamenco record with a flamenco artist. In another country like France, I might record with Manu Dibango. Or John Lydon or all those people I've worked with. I like to clash up to mash up."

There certainly have been many significant collaborations in Bam's past. He did Unity with James Brown; two years on from the other Godfather's death, his feelings on the man are simple. "James Brown is the god of music," he says, emphatically. "Without James Brown, all music would stink."

What about Time Zone's World Destruction, with the former Sex Pistol John Lydon: was that a cool collabo?

"That was definitely fun working with John Lydon," Bam smiles. "That's another record that was very important in my career. Took me around the world many times. And it definitely was used as a social-issue record. Especially when President Bush started the war in Iraq and many people were scared to go against what was happening and were afraid of freedom of speech. And then people just got tired of it. They started marching in the streets and they used that record and a couple of other anti-war records like John Lennon as being the records to keep the march going on."

We discuss Time Zone's other release, without John Lydon, called Wildstyle, which was a DJ record in the spirit of Grandmaster Flash's Adventures on the Wheels of Steel. We also touch on the link-up with Leftfield, Afrika Shox, which gained notoriety from its infamous video of a homeless man on the streets of New York City, and was used in the Tom Cruise movie, Vanilla Sky. But how does Afrika Bambaataa feel about electro today? Is it completely dissimilar to what he started? (Because it is arguably something he started.)

"I love all the different flavours of electro," he says. "It's all still electro-funk to me. Everybody is like talking different category names; all this electronica, this, that, but I like the different directions that it's gone in, all the different vibrations. So, if you want slow electro, or electronica, or the electro of drum'n'bass, it's all funky, all different styles."

Does he miss sound system battles with rival DJs, like at the very beginning of hip hop?

"Not really," he admits. "[But] I miss playing live in the parks. We played a couple of times in the park last year with the Rock Steady Crew, and what I miss most is the vibe I get playing with my band and doing concerts with people. The sound system battles were cool at the time, but sometimes it could've got negative."

It seems impossible to fathom now, but Bam starred in the very first hip hop tour that came to Europe in 1982. Now that the continent's fans are spoilt for choice of hip hop acts to go see in the flesh, it's difficult to remember a time when it was all brand new. You can only wonder how people reacted to live hip hop all those years ago.

"Well, some of them thought it was strange," he chuckles. "To other people it was something interesting and new. But some places we went they didn't know what the hell we were doing - hearing scratching, seeing B-Boys and B-Girls. It took a lot of work going from town to town, city to city, playing some cafes, all the way up to stadiums, then back to little cafes... Y'know, trying to break this from country to country. Then it caught on. Some places, we'd throw up certain signs, they said 'Oh. You can't do that. That means that. This means this.' But we kept doing it and people started accepting it. Other places, they didn't know if we were singing or rapping. Other people thought it was a fad. Now, we've got hip hop all over the world and people speak hip hop in their own native tongues."

Which brings us back full circle to New York City, and the South Bronx, the very cradle of hip hop. Bambaataa knows and loves New York: he's played all over the place, all over the years. How is New York treating him right now? What are the runnings like for him there?

"New York is just standing," he says, a little opaquely. "New York is getting ready for the future age. New York is also dealing with a lot of problems, whether it be police brutality or trying to organise people. Police brutality is still happening all across America, and not just in the USA, but all around the world."

Does he think it could end up in a situation where people riot again?

"That's not too far-fetched," he muses. "That could be anywhere on the planet. It's gonna get chaotic when people start walking into supermarkets and seeing a shortage of food. Who is dictating to burn all this food in Africa or to keep people poor all over the place from here to India? Because Africa itself can feed the world ten to fifteen times over. There should be nobody starving or not to have a home anywhere on this planet. We've got to get ready for the future age, the eco-system age. There should be dome homes built for all these people or for anybody who needs it. 'Cos dome homes are the way of the future..."

He's gone on something of a well-planned tangent and is hitting his stride now. He continues by stating that paper money is not real unless backed by silver and gold and that people should start watching out for politicians and should not look to President Obama as a Messiah. We have entered the esoteric zone with Afrika Bambaataa. Let's just ask him what his personal philosophy is and see if he comes back from orbit, to earth... No chance. Suddenly he's animated.

"My personal philosophy is dealing with the universe as a whole", he states, emphatically. "Everything is connected. People have used tricknology to cause wars on this planet. Some of the biggest wars are caused with religion. Y'know - 'my God is this God,' when it's all the same supreme force. So, they use the three major religions and keep people going at each other's throats, but then everybody, when they go back to Ancient Kemet, which is what I deal with now, which is the Egypt known today - everybody has taken everything from the ancient Kemetians. You see things all over the place, from the Vatican, to the different squares all over the UK. Why is everybody always stealing from the Egyptians? In museums, they try to make Egypt look like it's some other spot outside Africa. They put Africa way down from other places and they put Egypt in another place. Why did Napoleon go and try to knock all the noses off the statues of the Kemetian Egyptian people, and why does this so-called holy book try to make Egypt look like it's evil, when everybody has to go to Egypt to get their consciousness? People have been playing mind games in history. And just like in Europe, Europe's so-called European white history has an African black history, with the Moors, all over it. The Moors went all over Europe. If you research and dig deep into history, even the history of the UK, you'll find that Moors have been all up and down here too. So, no, black people did not come here as slaves, black people were some of the originators of Europe. The original Americans are not the red man and red woman, its black men and women. So we gotta stop all this foolishness and show what black, brown, red, yellow and white people have done to make life better on our planet. Some people say one science and another race of people add on to that science, then we've gotta give respect to all people that have made civilisation better for everyone on the planet. Most of these social studies books are playing mind games with people."

There's more, but we'll leave it there. Afrika Bambaataa is certainly not mad, he just has deeply held personal beliefs - including a belief in the existence of aliens, but that's a whole other story in itself. Suffice to say, he remains a true original and an innovator of hip hop and will probably be around in one form or another for years to come. He can't be forgotten. He must be remembered. Or we're doomed to keep going back to certain moments in mid-'80s hip hop forever. Mustn't forget the past, lest we repeat it.