40 years of ‘Rockit,’ how Herbie Hancock elevated hip-hop onto a new pedestal

In honor of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, theGrio examines how Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” utilizing the turntablism of Grandmixer DXT, helped hip-hop earn the respect of music critics and gatekeepers during its infancy.

It’s just a fad. That’s what critics and musicians, Black and white alike, had to say about hip-hop and rap music in 1983.

The history of recorded hip-hop and rap music began in 1979 with Fatback’s “Kim Tim III” and Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” In the following four years, the music’s progression commenced tremendously with Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” The Sequence’s “Funk You Up,” and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force’s “Planet Rock.”

Despite its emergence, hip-hop, particularly rap, was overlooked as little more than a passing trend or a quaint novelty from a disparaged community of people of color. People perceived it as primitive and devoid of natural talent.

Hip-hop started gaining the industry’s respect when one man stepped in to put this new innovative music on a pedestal. That man is Herbie Hancock. His 1983 single, “Rockit,” tapped into hip-hop’s incorporation of New York electro and record scratching with the facilities of a so-called jazz musician and opened the genre to a new plateau.

The Chicago-born piano virtuoso spent the 1960s building a stellar reputation as a nimble, intelligent sideman for Miles Davis and Donald Byrd while proving to be a prodigious composer as a leader. Compositions like “Cantaloupe Island,” “Watermelon Man,” and “Maiden Voyage” became instant standards in the realm of so-called jazz.

But Hancock wanted more. He wanted to make people dance. In the 1970s, Hancock attempted to remove himself from the consortium of the so-called jazz world in favor of making music that resembled the accessible funk of Sly Stone. He achieved as much with his 1973 album, “Head Hunters,” and its most famous single, “Chameleon.”

At the dawn of a new decade, Hancock continued pushing for new sounds. After his 1982 album “Lite Me Up,” featuring compositions from Rod Temperton (“Thriller,” “Give Me the Night”), failed to impact pop or R&B radio, the pianist found inspiration from an emerging movement.

“Back in the early ’80s, I was at the right place, at the right time, with the right people,” Hancock said in his 2005 documentary, “Possibilities.” During that time, hip-hop and rap slowly began penetrating the culture via artists from other genres experimenting with the medium.

Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry rapped on their 1980 hit “Rapture,” name-dropping Grandmaster Flash and Fab Five Freddie. New Edition’s first hit single, “Candy Girl,” featured the Boston quintet rapping during the song’s bridge. British musician and former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren went full gusto into hip-hop production with songs like “Duck Rock,” “Buffalo Gals,” and “World’s Famous” using rap and record scratching.

Pioneers like Grand Wizard Theodore opened Pandora’s box by exploring the realm of record scratching as a DJ attribute. When Hancock discovered it, he knew he had to experiment with it.

“I heard scratching as sort of an ambient kind of sound, but in a rhythmic fashion,” Hancock said. “I said, ‘I want to do something with that.'”

Hancock enlisted the duo of Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn from the experimental post-rock outfit, Material. Together, the trio would compose and produce Hancock’s 1983 album, “Future Shock.” The title track served as an updated cover of the 1973 Curtis Mayfield song and a mission statement for the miniature musical revolution that the album’s first single would spark.

Like “Chameleon,” “Rockit” had a nasty bass hook (courtesy of Laswell) as its foundation. While tenor saxophonist Benny Maupin played the melody of the former, Hancock handled the melody of “Rockit” himself with an earworm of a synth-keyboard line. Enter Grandmixer DXT. The Bronx-native DJ entered Hancock’s circle, lending his talents to “Rockit.”

Grandmixer DXT’s record scratching wasn’t the icing on the cake but the milk, eggs and wheat. His iconic take propelled the track, the same way that Clyde Stubblefield’s iconic drum breakdown did on James Brown tunes like “Funky Drummer” and “Cold Sweat.” DXT and Hancock laid the groundwork for getting turntablism recognized as genuine musicianship, later elevating the work of people like Pete Rock and DJ Premier.

“Rockit” hit the streets on August 1, 1983, and made a seismic impact in the streets, aided by an imaginative accompanying music video featuring quirky mechanical dancing legs and robots. The tune made it impossible for listeners to keep still, becoming a breakdancing anthem, standing head and shoulders alongside tracks like Shannon’s “Let the Music Play” and Newcleus’ “Jam On It.” Even Hancock was shocked at how much the hip-hop community embraced his new track.

“I remember one time, somebody told me that they went to a breakdance contest,” Hancock said in the “Possibilities” documentary. “There were 25 groups, and they could each choose any piece of music to break to. Twenty-four of them chose ‘Rockit!'”

“Rockit” helped make “Future Shock” Hancock’s biggest commercially successful album of the 1980s. The LP reached No. 2 on the Billboard Jazz charts, No. 10 on the R&B charts, and “Rockit” became Hancock’s second and final entry on the Billboard Hot 100.

After the public responded, so did the critics. Hancock and the band received a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance for “Rockit.” With Grandmixer DXT getting a trophy, hip-hop had its first-ever Grammy win. The video for “Rockit” made a significant impact. During the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, Hancock won five awards, the most of any artist that night, including Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which only earned three wins.

“Rockit” primed the public for the hip-hop’s irreversible infiltration into American culture that would occur three years later via Run-DMC’s “Walk This Way.” Hancock’s music would soon become the source of some of the most essential and infectious rap records ever produced, from US3’s “Canteloop (Flip Fantasia)” to Slum Village’s “Get Dis Money.”

Although the fusion between hip-hop and so-called jazz was preceded by artists like Gil-Scott Heron and Quincy Jones in the 1970s, “Rockit” initiated the modern-day amalgamation of the two worlds. The track paved the way for A Tribe Called Quest to enlist Hancock’s running mate Ron Carter for their 1991 album, “The Low End Theory.” When Davis, Hancock’s old boss, started working with Easy Moe Bee for his final album, “Doo-Bop,” Hancock likely provided the template for such a collaboration.

“Rockit” helped legitimize hip-hop in a way that artists from other genres couldn’t not. Because Hancock received so much respect from the public from his association with Miles Davis and his reputation as a progressive pianist and composer, Hancock and his band utilized it in a way that wasn’t contrived nor a pander to ride the wave of a trend. Hancock and the song fathered other forward-thinking jazz-hip-hop fusionists like Robert Glasper, Jason Moran and Terrace Martin.

Thanks to the impact of “Rockit,” hip-hop is the dominant inspiring agent in music and pop culture worldwide. Not bad for a fad.

Matthew Allen is an entertainment writer of music and culture for theGrio. He is an award-winning music journalist, TV producer and director based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s interviewed the likes of Quincy Jones, Jill Scott, Smokey Robinson and more for publications such as Ebony, Jet, The Root, Village Voice, Wax Poetics, Revive Music, Okayplayer, and Soulhead. His video work can be seen on PBS/All Arts, Brooklyn Free Speech TV and BRIC TV.

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