Director: Tim MacKenzie-Smith
Date Watched: 10-9-2024
Where: AFS Cinema, Austin, TX
Rating: 5/10
I seldom watch documentaries, but I’m a fan of Cymande and I wanted to learn more about them. The film doesn’t do much to that end. It’s mostly a mix of the band members talking about the racism they faced in Britain in the 1970s, and modern musicians gushing about the influence Cymande had on their work. Cymande is not well known, but their music has been sampled in a lot of hip hop and electronic songs.
The band members are all quite old now, and for the most part soft-spoken, and a choice was made to spend more time speaking to the younger generation of musicians that they inspired. We hear from Nicky Siano, Louie Vega, Mark Ronson, Prince Paul, De La Soul, Khruangbin, Cut Chemist, and a number of other well-known modern acts who heap praise upon the lesser-known Cymande, an octet of Brits with West Indian ancestry.
The best part was hearing the music of Cymande pumping through the cinema’s sound system.