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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Jocko Henderson Taught Students Through Rap Before Rap Took Off

Jocko Henderson was a rapper long before the birth of hip hop—and he used that skill to teach kids.

by Rich Watson 

Douglas Henderson, better known to radio listeners as Jocko, was a star deejay in both Philadelphia and New York during the early days of rock and roll. He was known for a routine not unlike rap. He is credited as one of the first rappers, a man who influenced a number of early hip-hoppers in the late seventies.

It was a style that served him later in life when he taught schoolchildren.

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