Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande
Directed by Tim MacKenzie-Smith
Featuring Cymande, Vincent Mason, Craig Charles, Mark Speer, Jim James, Mark Ronson
Running time 1 hour, 29 minutes
Currently unrated
In theaters April, 2024
by "Doc" Hunter Bush, contributor & podcast czar
Cymande are a band you likely aren't aware you've heard before. They're a secret handshake; if you recognize the samples within songs by the likes of The Fugees, Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, Gang Starr, MF Doom, Heavy D & the Boyz, Akhenaton, Dan the Automator, Queen Latifah and many more, you're in the club. According to DJs of the era, interviewed in this doc, the bridge from the Cymande track Bra was such a ubiquitous part of the 1980s East Coast hiphop and club scene that people just assumed it originated from that area, at that time. But you know what they say about making assumptions.
Cymande formed in 1971 in Brixton, a district in South London, England. The number of band members fluctuated early on, but there are nine in the core group, all of them coming from the diaspora community in London and bringing influences from their home cultures. All were self-taught, and everything they might lack in technical ability, they made up for in heart and communication of an ethos. The name 'Cymande' comes from a calypso song and means 'dove', symbolizing peace and unity.
This is essentially all of the information on the formation of the band that you're given in Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande. Director Tim MacKenzie-Smith seems more interested in exploring the band's legacy and their enduring reach, as well as their comeback more than just rehashing facts you could glance through in a Wikipedia article. Within those boundaries, the focus seems to be on the joy and love of performing that the band feel. MacKenzie-Smith makes liberal use of extreme close-ups to show the emotion playing across various members' faces.
After recording their self-titled first album in 1972, the band languished in relative obscurity in the U.K. due in no small part to racism and British nationalism, while their singles and album were charting in the United States. A series of U.S. tour dates followed, during which time they recorded three subsequent albums. Upon their return to the U.K., finding that the British music press still ignored them, they decided to take a break that lasted until 2006. They wouldn't reform in a more permanent way until 2012.
During that initial 34 year gap, while race riots broke out in London, DJs in the U.S. were finding Cymande (the aforementioned track Bra) and alternating between 2 copies of their self-tiled LP to make the bridge on Bra last as long as the audience could take it before they popped. Watching musicians and music lovers talk about music will always be infectious to me. Whether they're eloquent, perfectly distilling a song's essence, or overwhelmed by their personal appreciation, I'll always enjoy hearing it.
Getting It Back isn't a one-and-done primer for Cymande, but it seems more concerned with making sure your interest in them is piqued enough that you'll look into them more on your own. The message of their music is one that wants for a better world. In that world, you wouldn't need a documentary like this to tell you who Cymande are. You'd already know.
GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE hits theaters in May.
