"Rockit" is a composition recorded by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock and produced by Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn. Hancock released it as a single from his twenty-ninth album, Future Shock (1983). The selection was composed by Hancock, Laswell, and Beinhorn.
The track was driven by its deejay scratch style, performed primarily by DXT, and its music video created by Godley & Creme, featuring the robotic art of Jim Whiting, which was put in high rotation on MTV. "Rockit" won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance in 1983, and it won five MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. In 2022 and 2025, Rolling Stone and Billboard magazine included the song in their lists of the best dance songs of all time.
Recording
"Rockit" was constructed and composed during the recording process, first at BC Studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn, with additional overdubs at RPM Studios in Manhattan, then Hancock's home studio in West Hollywood, and finally at Eldorado studio in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The production duo of Material (bassist Bill Laswell and synth player Michael Beinhorn) were based at Martin Bisi's BC Studio, recording experimental, no wave and underground club music. Hancock's 25-year-old manager, Tony Meilandt, approached Laswell to write a new track for Hancock, whose career needed a boost. To gauge this potential new direction for his career, Hancock accompanied Laswell to hear a set of popular club DJs including Afrika Bambaataa and D.ST spin at Roxy NYC in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Warily eyeing the crowd, which to him looked like a riot, Hancock needed more convincing by Meilandt before he contracted with Laswell's team to deliver two tracks. Meilandt later said "Herbie was very much ready" to try a new kind of sound.
At BC Studios, Beinhorn used a new Oberheim DMX drum machine to lay down a basic beat, and Laswell brought in Daniel Ponce to augment this with Afro-Cuban batá drums. Ponce played the three drums one at a time during three recording passes, to make it sound like three drummers invoking a Santería spirit.
The 2-inch 16-track master tape containing rhythm parts and scratching needed to be transferred to 24-track 2-inch in order for Hancock to work with it at his home studio. Laswell and Bisi took the tape to RPM Studios in Greenwich Village, but instead of simply transferring the format, they added some extra sounds, especially a stab of guitar taken from a Led Zeppelin song on the album Coda. Using the repeat hold function of a Lexicon Prime Time digital delay, they attempted to capture a Led Zeppelin snare drum sound, but a moment of inattention resulted in the guitar stab, which Laswell found better suited his purpose. featured robot-like movable sculptures (by Jim Whiting) dancing, spinning, and even walking in time to the music in a "virtual house" in London, England. The video garnered five MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, including Best Concept Video and Best Special Effects. Hancock himself appears, and plays keyboard, only as an image on a television receiver, which is smashed on the pavement outside the front door of the house at the end of the video. The video also won two Billboard Video Music Awards, one for most innovative video, and another for best art direction.
Performances
"Rockit" was performed at the 1985 Grammy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles, California, in a synthesizer jam with contemporaries Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby, and Stevie Wonder.
Legacy
In July 2022, Rolling Stone ranked "Rockit" number 131 in their list of the "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time".
|align="center"|72
|-
|-
|-
|France (IFOP)
|align="center"|9
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|US Billboard Hot 100
|align="center"|71
|-
|US Hot Black Singles (Billboard)
|align="center"|64
|-
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Chart (1984)
!Peak<br>position
|-
|Australia (Kent Music Report)
|align="center"|16
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{|class="wikitable"
!Chart (1983)
!Position
|-
|Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)
|align="center"|67
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Chart (1984)
!Position
|-
|Australia (Kent Music Report)
|align="center"|71
|-
|Canada Top Singles (RPM)
|align="center"|77
|-
|France (IFOP)
|align="center"|48
|}
Certifications
See also
- List of number-one dance singles of 1983 (U.S.)