Five Sounds and Instruments Heard in Herbie Hancock’s Hip-Hop/Jazz Amalgam “Rockit”

This electric eighties jam from a jazz veteran helped make hip-hop mainstream.

by Rich Watson 

The song “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock came around the time when hip-hop music was still new and unfamiliar to mainstream audiences. By combining the art of “scratching” vinyl records with a jazz sensibility, it helped legitimize the sound born of DJ house parties and inner city streets.

Hancock used more than scratches and samples on the song, though.

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