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.

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.