Herbie Hancock's "Rockit"

One Song

Hartbeat

Music Commentary, Music Interviews, Onesong, Comedy, Music

4.9 • 876 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did a jazz innovator help bring hip-hop into the mainstream with one groundbreaking instrumental? Diallo and LUXXURY explore Herbie Hancock’s 1983 hit “Rockit,” the electro avant-garde experiment that elevated scratching as an art form and ushered jazz into the future. One Song Spotify Playlist Songs Discussed: “Rockit” - Herbie Hancock “I’m Not In Love” - 10cc “Billie Jean” - Michael Jackson “Bring Down the Birds” - Herbie Hancock “Groove Is in the Heart” - Deee-Lite “Watermelon Man” - Herbie Hancock “Escapism (Gettin’ Free)” - Digible Planets “Cantaloupe Island” - Herbie Hancock “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)” - US3 “I Thought It Was You” - Herbie Hancock “Buffalo Gals” - Malcolm McLaren and The World’s Famous Supreme Team “Change the Beat” - Beside “Upper and Lower Egypt” - Pharoah Sanders “It’s Just Begun” - The Jimmy Castor Bunch “We’re Gonna Groove” - Led Zeppelin “Get Lucky” - Daft Punk “Planet Rock” - Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force “Going Back To Cali” - LL COOL J “Paul Revere” - Beastie Boys “Peter Piper” - Run DMC “Mere Jaisi Mehbooba” - Bappi Lahiri “Top Of The World” - 8Ball & MJG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Luxury. Today, we're diving into a pioneering record that proved you could mash jazz with hip hop,
0:06.2	with Afro-Cuban rhythms, and electronic music, and land a major hit. Take that one, Marcellus.
0:12.1	That's right. And to do all that genre-bending successfully without any vocals and hit number one on
0:17.2	the dance charts and win a Grammy for best R&B instrumental performance. I mean,
0:21.6	come on! And by the way, this song's success came in no small part thanks to its avant-garde
0:26.4	music video, which stole the show at the 1984 music video awards. We're going to get into all of that
0:31.9	and more. We're talking one song and that song is...
0:35.0	by Herbie Hancock.
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	...

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