Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande (2024)
Director: Tim MacKenzie-Smith Run Time: 91 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2024
Starring: Cut Chemist, Donald Johnson Jr., Kool DJ Red Alert, Mark Ronson, Vincent Mason
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
About the film:
World Premiere, SXSW Film Festival 2022.
Cymande, a group of Black British musicians who all came to the U.K. from the Caribbean as children, released three brilliant albums in quick succession in the early 1970s and were embraced in the USA. But in the U.K., they faced a music business beset by prejudice against homegrown Black talent and were largely ignored. They originally split in 1975, but their music lived on, as successive generations of artists and fans found and embraced their songs. Hip Hop, House, Drum and Bass, R&B, Rare Groove, and crate-digging communities all saw something in the songs of Cymande that inspired them.
“If you’re the type who loves discovering underrated artists from a bygone era, then this film is bound to have your undivided attention.”
—Puja Nandi, Film Hounds
About the filmmaker:
Tim Mackenzie-Smith is an award winning British filmmaker known for sports documentaries, such as Keane & Vieira: Best Of Enemies (2013), The Mavericks (2016), and Rooney: The Man Behind The Goals (2015). A passionate Cymande fan, he has spent the last five years working on his newest film, Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande (2024), and is proud to bring their story to the world.
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