Jocko

Douglas "Jocko" Henderson stands alongside Daddy O' Daylie and Hot Rod Hulbert among the earliest rhythm and blues radio disc jockeys. His fluid, rhythmic, rhymed spoken segments found quick imitators among the announcers of the first rock and roll years and supplied a central template for the rap idiom. Although his contribution to hip-hop proved decisive, the connection ran indirectly through the verbal toasts of the earliest Jamaican sound system operators. One account holds that his nationally syndicated programs, carried into the Caribbean by Miami transmitters, set the pattern those deejays followed. Another version recalls how sound system promoter and record producer Coxsone Dodd met Jocko during a U.S. record-buying trip and urged his own deejays to copy the style.

Whichever route the influence traveled, catchphrases such as "The Great Wuga Wuga" by Sir Lord Comic and "Ace from Space" by U. Roy were taken directly from Jocko’s store of spoken devices. When Kool DJ Herc later transplanted the Jamaican sound system format to New York City party audiences, the stylized microphone patter that framed his bass-heavy sets descended from Jocko’s rhyming jive.

Henderson entered radio in Baltimore in 1950, then relocated to Philadelphia, where growing popularity let him maintain a daily commute to New York for a second shift. There he hosted the black-oriented television dance program “Jocko’s Rocket Ship,” a direct predecessor of “Soul Train.” He further worked as master of ceremonies for many rhythm and blues stage shows and staged large-scale record hops that anticipated later disco ballroom events.

Few recordings by Jocko exist, yet the first commercial wave of rap yielded a valuable document of what is widely regarded as the original rap manner. In 1979, shortly after “Rapper’s Delight,” Philadelphia International issued “Rhythm Talk,” an instrumental version of McFadden and Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” over which Jocko deployed his full repertoire of oral formulas.