Overview

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, ideas of fantasy, futurism, and sociocultural dynamics, this book presents a study of the impact and influence of electro rap on the formative years of recorded hip hop and beyond. 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 as points of departure for analysis. It makes visible the greater significance of formative and future electro rap in hip hop culture, other musics and broader society.

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9781501354472

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Reviews

Adam de Paor-Evans brings deep thought and keen analysis to hip-hop creativity that converges in the nexus where the sonic production of electronic technologies meets the philosophical realms of Afrofuturist thought, science fiction, racial self-definition, and enlightened Black counternarratives. This is heady, smart work that entertains while contributing a crucial new dimension to our understanding of what hip-hop was, is, and can be. It’s sure to send readers scrambling to revisit the electro rap classics that form the core of the story. * Murray Forman, Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, USA *

Author Information

Adam de Paor-Evans is Fellow in the School of Art, Design, and Architecture at University of Plymouth, UK, having previously held the post of Reader in Ethnomusicology at University of Central Lancashire. UK. He is author of the monograph Provincial Headz: British Hip Hop and Critical Regionalism (2020), and runs the research studio Rhythm Obscura: Revealing Hidden Histories Through Ethnomusicology, Practice Research and Spatio-material Culture.

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