'Mande Effect

Getting It Back: The Cymande Story (trailer)
(the BFI's YouTube page; 2024)


Been waiting to see the Cymande documentary since a trailer for it first appeared a couple of years back, so shit was on like Donkey Kong when my local cinema screened it last night. Never did I ever imagine I'd see the Biz Markie puppet on a British cinema screen, but that's exactly what happened when the documentary featured clips from Master Ace's Me & The Biz video. I never quite realised how unsuccessful they were in the U.K at the time, nor how popular they briefly were in America - my mans supported Al Green on tour playing to thousands of people every night, were the first British group to headline Harlem's Apollo theatre, and The Message was a legit Billboard 100 hit. Fancy that eh?

Cymande's Dove is one of those songs which has me thinking "how did ANYBODY ever come up with this?" and "how did NOBODY ever come up with this before?" at the SAME DAMN TIME! Moreover, I can't believe nobody flipped that sample until Diamond D cooked up The Score for The Fugees in 1996. Part of me wishes Diamond had given that beat to somebody else, but that somebody else probably would have been wack-arse Fat Joe. Sometimes you've gotta say "c'est Fu-Gee-La vie" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We live in a world where nobody has ever uploaded Cymande's Soul Train appearance to YouTube, but there are multiple uploads of David Bowie's performance of his woeful Golden Years single on Soul Train. Motherf**kers are all up in the game with their priorities missin'.