The culture of hip-hop shifted dramatically soon after the first wave of studio-recorded vinyl releases at the turn of the 1980s. Drawing upon science fiction, electro, and Afrofuturism, this book presents a sociocultural study of their impact and influence on the formative years of recorded hip-hop. de Paor-Evans reveals a parallel and occasionally dialectical evolution of hip-hop music spawned from transatlantic, transdisciplinary, and transcultural engagements and unearths linkages between innovations in music technology, fantasy, folklore, arcade and video gaming, non-white diasporas, and transglobal politics of the time. Historically located between 1982 and 1987, the book takes exemplary well-known and equally obscure records from both sides of the Atlantic. It makes visible the greater significance of formative and future hip-hop culture in other musics and broader society.