Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

I have this concept that I call "saviour music"

when pop music that is so huge you can't escape it

is also good.

And in high school

my saviour music was the Fugees.

The Score came out.

You know, and it was such a huge record.

It was one of the greatest records of all time.

# You rockin' live but you ain't sayin' nothing

# It's time to settle the score

# I play my enemies like a game of...

You'd be at a party or something,

and there'd be tons of shitty music playing,

but there was that Fugees CD in the pile of terrible CDs

that would always save my life.

And the song "The Score"...

I'll never forget hearing that song come on.

I was like, "Wow!"

And I think for a long time

I didn't even know it was the sample.

And then, ten years later or something,

we were on a roof top in Manhattan...

just partying one night after we played a show

and somebody played the Fugees.

"The Score" was on, we were listening to it.

And somebody was like, "Have you heard the song

that's the sample from that?"

And I said, "What are you talking about?"

They're like, "Yeah, it's this band, Cymande,

and it's called 'Dove'".

And we sat there on this roof in Manhattan

and he played "Dove"

and I was just forever changed.

That song to me is so profoundly important

that it almost eclipses everything.

It's like a magic spell.

You know, it's like you literally put a spell on me.

It really does seem otherworldly.

Just feel like it came down on a spaceship or something.

It's coming from another place.

And you can feel it.

You're affected by it. There's something going on.

There's some music that's just bigger than music.

And you think to yourself,

"Why isn't this band huge?"

How did these people come together

to create something incredible

and most people have never heard of them?

It sounds like something

that popular culture would have embraced

and then you find out that that's not the case.

These guys need to be known

for their contribution to music.

Back in the day people came out to party.

Once you put that on, boom, lights out.

You don't want nothing else, you ain't need nothing else.

Just put that joint on.

I had discovered this new kind of music

and I wanted to turn my friends onto it.

The sound unified everybody.

It transcends from generation to generation.

Once it touches your soul,

you've gotta take some piece of it with you

and I was like, "I gotta do something with that."

They set the tone for so many of us today.

Their music has been endorsed

by every subsequent music movement to date.

I knew all the songs. I didn't know it was them.

Then I realised, "These guys are everywhere."

Hidden in plain sight.

And that added this even weirder aspect

to the whole mystery.

How have I not heard of this band before?

I'm trying to understand why it's been suppressed.

Why has it not had that freedom

that it was intended to have?

There are still so many unanswered questions.

Who are those guys?

Where are these guys from? Where did they go?

What happened to them?

What was their demise?

Music is pure magic.

It's one of the most beautiful ways we can share love.

The only way you can ever succeed

is to make what's in your heart.

To bring what's in your heart into this world.

And love it yourself.

This is my general walk, you know.

The lungs producing too much carbon dioxide.

So...

I come all the time to get some oxygen from the trees.

So I come here as often as I can, you know?

Someday you're not really up to it, really, but...

Some days you are.

Sometimes I sit here...

and I enjoy the sun.

Taking the vitamin D...

which is good for me.

I thought we could have sold millions.

When I speak about Cymande,

it's not just about what music we played,

but what we represented.

Since the war, the people of this land

have seen it change almost out of recognition.

One of the biggest changes has been the massive inflow

of hundreds of thousands of coloured immigrants.

We were all Caribbean.

Not from the same country, but the same region.

With them they have brought new

and widely incompatible cultures,

social customs and habits.

England was not simply the mother country,

but the place to go to maximise our potential.

# I don't want to feel down

# 'Cause my name is getting around

When I actually arrived in England,

I was six, going on seven.

Coming to this place was quite traumatic.

# 'Cause I don't know where I'm bound

I remember feeling this chill,

and it was summer from where we came.

It was cold.

I have this image in the back of my mind.

You're going to this fantastic place,

it's going to be paved in gold.

And in reality it's dark,

dismal, miserable.

Everywhere looked the same, you would get lost.

The fog. You couldn't see where you were going,

couldn't see your hands.

But you get used to it because you've got to survive.

No matter what, you've got to survive, you know.

Our parents were professional people,

well educated.

They assumed this place would provide

an educational and professional advance.

But once we arrived here,

what we found was a society

that was not accepting of Black people.

It's a tragedy for Britain,

a tragedy for the British people.

We do not have sufficient houses,

jobs and schools for our own people,

let alone immigrants,

be they Black, brown, yellow or green.

We should at least have the dignity

of being allowed to live with our own kind.

We're full up with noisy foreigners

and we don't like it.

My parents' hopes and dreams for themselves and for us

were shattered very, very quickly.

My father, when he was in Jamaica, he was a baker.

And when he came here

he went to one of the bread-making companies.

I can't remember which one.

And they said, "We can't employ you as a baker."

"Why?"

"Because basically you're not allowed...

Being Black, you're not allowed

to put your hand in the dough."

I watched my father become very old very quickly

after things like that.

Though things might be difficult,

got people not used to you,

they give you bad looks or say things...

You would get together at your friends'

and draw strength from each other, you know?

This was our meeting point.

The community meeting point for everyone of our group.

This was the place.

This was where everything happened.

I lived at number 15,

and Steve was living at number 23.

And we have lived in close proximity

from that day to this.

# Dove and pigeon,

# what two good companions.

I remember I got a piano.

My friend...

You couldn't get it through the door.

So Mister Brains here...

- I disassembled it. - We disassembled it.

- And reassembled it... - In the back.

You pressed the key.

There was absolutely nothing, so...

That was the end of that piano.

Steve got the name on.

It comes from the chorus of a...

famous Calypso.

We wanted something unusual

where the name itself projected...

something about where we came from.

Cymande started with six.

The first core member that we made contact with was Mike.

One of the early gigs I got playing flute

was with Ginger Johnson.

That's where I first met Patrick Patterson

and Steve Scipio.

They invited me to come to play with their band in Brixton.

People called me "Bammi",

which was a name that I got from school days in Jamaica

which never left me.

I don't know why.

I started hitting drums, rather than playing drums,

more as therapy.

Like a lot of us at that time, I had this anger about me.

I wasn't very good at communicating those days.

So, with drumming, I could express myself.

Patrick, Steve and Bammi had a jazz band

and they had a gig

and their drummer couldn't make it.

Somebody heard that there was a guy down the road

who had been bashing things,

so I ended up playing with this band.

We are self-taught musicians.

We had that originality about the way we played.

A lot of bass players were just support bass players.

I always wanted the bass to be an instrument that...

speaks.

Patrick has a different style of guitar playing.

He's not flash, but he just puts in the right ingredients.

If there's a space there, he won't just play rhythm.

He would put little touches.

He can go out and play two notes in a solo

and that says it all.

You'll get another guy who'll play a million notes

and say nothing.

I was living in the next street

to where they were rehearsing.

They were just a bunch of young guys.

They were more like brothers.

Derek and Sam were cousins,

so it was more like a family thing, really.

I used to play with a piano player.

One night Patrick was in the audience

and he came up to me and said,

"We've formed a band. Would I be interested?"

I said,�You think I�m good enough? You're there, you can hear."

That's how it started.

We all appreciated what it is that we wanted to achieve

in terms of blending musical styles.

That was when I brought Pablo Gonsales from Catford

into the rehearsal room in Brixton.

I went down to the rehearsal with Bammi.

I started to play.

Patrick said, "Oh, yeah. That's the sound."

That's the element that was missing.

I didn't go to school to learn the drums.

It's all coming from within.

It's like a gift was handed down to me

by my ancestors, you know what I mean?

I was born with it

and it's spiritual.

'Cause music and all, it's a spiritual thing.

In our day, reggae music hadn't even started,

but part of the community here that we mixed with

were Rastafarian.

And we wanted to incorporate the Rasta drums,

and the Rasta chants and the Rasta anthems.

And let the chanter go with that.

The Rasta drums, the funk, the jazz influences.

It sort of emerged as Cymande.

Our purpose is to destroy the multiracial society

and to render Britain a monoracial society again

because our party seeks

to preserve the ethnic integrity of the British nation.

We answered a call in the early 50s

to come here to help and build the mother country.

First of all, an immediate halt to coloured immigration.

And thereafter, the phased repatriation

of all coloured immigrants,

their descendants and dependents from Britain

to their lands of ethnic origin.

- And if they don't go? - They're going to go.

It was a high-tension political time.

We wanted to be a band that stood for something.

It was important for us as a band

that we had a message

and it was communicated through our music.

Peace and love is an important thing

and it is lost sight of, unfortunately.

Britain's uncivilised?

Indeed, in terms of human relationships,

when I talk about civilisation,

I'm not talking about the technology of your cars,

I'm talking about mankind

respecting the interests of mankind.

Cymande came on the scene with something fresh.

It came with something original

and it came with something from the Windrush generation,

if you like.

No apologies.

Yes, I am a racist. And why?

Who's made me a racist?

Every dirty, stinking councillor who sticks up for the nigger.

I'll stand by my words

'cause I don't like these people and never will.

It's my childhood as a Black Briton.

People saying, "Nigger, pull the trigger, bang, bang,"

at me in the street.

And Cymande addressed all of that.

Politically and culturally, I feel a sense of pride

because they were ready to stand up and be counted

and say, "Well, this is who we are."

In the same way that the Englishman has believed

that he had a right to go out and civilise Africa,

I believe that we are here

to teach you again how to be human.

In those days the gigs were

in places like Ronnie Scott's Upstairs, 100 Club.

Various other little venues.

We even did some work

in men's clubs up in the North,

which was quite an experience.

But then, after a couple of years,

the next level was then to start pursuing a recording gig.

Getting through as a band in the music business

was enormously difficult.

You're coming up at all times against a wall.

There was a barrier against Black music.

They'd point to some commercial artist or whatever

and say, "You know, what about doing something more like this?"

You and I would have heard them

refer to Black music as "jungle music".

This is not what our record company...

sells.

We were importing Black American groups all the time,

but we didn't embrace Black British talent.

You don't really think about the golden era

of Black British music

because we weren't allowed one, to be honest.

- This is it. - This is it.

We're going to be here.

Uh-huh.

I want to go in there and say, "Hey, we used to record here."

They'll call the police on you.

"Get out of here!"

Had we not met John Schroeder,

the music itself would not have had the exposure that it did.

Just by chance

I was going down to listen to another band.

The band I was going to see weren't there.

But there was all this noise going on.

I pushed on the doors, it was packed with all these people

who were bopping around to this music.

And I couldn't see where the music was coming from.

All I knew is that the rhythms...

that I was hearing were incredibly infectious.

And I thought, "I like what I hear,

I'm going to try something in the studio with them."

John wanted to capture the music as it was.

What he heard the first time he'd listened to the band,

he wanted it exactly like that reproduced on vinyl.

If you listen closely, it's not clinical.

It's live. We were having fun.

It was like a dream, you know what I mean?

I just did it.

I can't recollect the memory.

I didn't realise

that I would have to put this again in focus

by telling you about it, so...

Actually, I don't remember anything about it.

There were a lot of people involved

in the making of our music.

Then we were on the road.

Ray King was our main vocalist.

He couldn't continue recording so we brought Joey Dee in.

Joey was an exceptionally good singer.

He performed on most of the tracks.

Then after he went his own way,

Jimmy Lindsay sang.

I was very close to a guy called Marvin Schlacter

who had a label called Janus in the States.

Marvin said to me, "What are you doing, John?"

I said, "Well, I've got this band called Cymande.

I said, "I've got this cassette."

He said, "Well, leave it with me." I said, "Okay."

And that was the start of it all. He went bananas about it.

The music was released in America.

And... zoom.

"The Message" got an incredible reaction

from this college movement

and then it got on the national charts.

I said, "You've got an American manager now

I fixed up for you."

"What?"

I said, "You're going to the States." "What?"

They got really scared about going to America.

Got in trouble with the wives, you know.

What?

They take us out of the Brixton

to John F. Kennedy...

The limousine... whoa!

Say no more, eh?

The first gig we did

they got us supporting Al Green at Al Green concerts.

At that time, Al was at the height of his power.

We were playing in stadiums with 40,000 people.

That was an eye-opening experience.

The place looked loud and brash and everybody's...

uninhibited.

People just expressed themselves

in a way that you didn't find in the UK.

You know how rhythmic Cymande is with all their percussion,

half the bloody audience were up on the table...

Getting spoons and forks and cup.

Banging the bloody tables.

There's all this rhythm going on in the whole place.

It was absolutely amazing.

It was just incredible.

People reacting to what we were doing

and giving us half a chance.

We hadn't seen anything like that before.

I'll never forget doing a week in the Apollo

with Jerry Butler.

I adored him when we were young.

Now you're on stage with him in the Apollo.

When we finished, he was there waiting to shake our hands.

He appreciated what we were doing.

Yeah, man. That was good.

That was a fantastic experience

because of the significance of the Apollo

in terms of the history of American Black music.

And then we made another album which was recorded in Chicago.

So they just wrote the material

while they were basically on tour.

Yeah. They were very prolific in those days.

It was the stuff that you heard about

that happens to other people.

But now it's happening to you.

We were living it.

We were living it. It was amazing.

Having reached that level, played to that kind of crowd,

and having your music appreciated in that way,

and then returning to the UK,

and a kind of reality striking home...

We were supporting Al Green.

Al Green was massive.

And you come back over here and you try and get a gig,

and nobody still wanted to know.

Exposure was not just about gigs.

Exposure is also about where you play

and TV appearances.

You needed to be on television.

But we never got there.

The people at the time who controlled those things

didn't want West Indians out of Brixton.

The producers maybe had no incentive or...

no sanction,

or no penalty,

for not doing what they are paid to do

with my license money.

Why don't I see more of me on the TV?

It's prejudice.

We would have represented a huge part of the population,

and not being allowed to move on through that ceiling hurts.

It feels as though no one was really listening.

To me they were the British Black super group

that never ever happened.

We were on the road for four years.

By that time we'd done three albums.

We were just beaten down by the system.

It got to this point and it just stopped.

# Lord it gets harder

# These time, these times are changing

# Faster than before

# No love has been displayed out here

We'd put a lot of work in, and at the end of it,

there was no reward in terms of finances.

And you couldn't keep going like that forever.

# Boy I think it�s strange

# These time, these times are changing...

It was, I wouldn't say difficult to deal with,

it was more not acceptable.

We took the decision at that time

that maybe a break might be a good idea.

You know, we'd come back to it and pursue it later.

So we... split.

And that was it.

But you know, you've got to be strong.

If I dwell on that...

I'm like, you know...

My energy, I need my energy to go elsewhere so...

There was no point, really. That's it. Done. Gone.

Move on.

I had to do something.

So I started a company up. Electrical work.

And the saxophone... I just put it down.

# Time has been lost in trying

# We have been left outside

# Looking at passions dying... The Bronx was rough.

You had poverty at an all-time high.

So, you know, people were desperate.

# But it's alright, we can still go on...

We were poor. We weren't even poor, we was po'.

We couldn't even afford the other O-R.

But to me, it was all fun to me.

You know, it was the backdrop of my youth.

It was some of the best times in my life.

In the early stages, hip-hop wasn't even called hip-hop.

We were just jamming

before it became all the rhymes

and the intricate lyrics that you see today.

It was just the DJ and the music.

Before I got into hip-hop,

I was intrigued looking at my elders

when they were having the dance and disco affairs

in Manhattan.

They was always playing a wide amount of different music

with various sounds.

And one of the main ones was "Bra".

There was a new type of music coming out.

Danceable funk, danceable R&B, we used to call it.

It moved my feet, yes, sure.

It moved my soul.

72, going towards 73.

I'm basically playing in after-hour places all across Harlem

and this record comes out that was fabulously phat.

The first thing that happens to you with "Bra" is...

you could be standing there and this was like...

Du-du-du-du. Boom.

Once that hit you, you stopped.

I don't care if you ain't dancing,

if you're not partying at all.

When that drop hit you,

you are automatically involved.

If you was angry, you ain't angry no more.

If you was happy, you are happier.

If you got a cowbell,

you're going to beat the shit out of it.

Everybody heard that breakdown and the bass line and was like,

"Whoa, what is this?"

It's so funky you want to get up and dance.

Everybody's playing their tambourines

on the dance floor, and hitting whatever they can.

Then the drum comes in... boom, boom, boom

That's causing your body to just...

Oh. What? Oh.

I would turn it up so much

that people would be just buzzing.

I'm seeing them dancing regular.

When the break hits, I see them lose their mind.

Which made you have to be able to bring it back.

Okay, you know what?

We want to play this song not from the beginning

but mix it in the middle.

Hey, why not get two copies so that I can extend it?

You can go from one turntable to another.

You keep that sound going.

It was so good that, you know, you just had to say,

"Let me bring that right on back

one more time, let you all hear it again.

I don't think y'all feeling this yet.

Alright?"

"Yeah, we're feeling it now!"

This was a five-minute song

that used to actually play

for at least the better part of...

ten to 15 minutes by itself.

That's the way you've got to do that thing.

You gotta play it back from the beginning.

Play that one part on this side,

mix it on that side,

mix it back and forth.

Now we got something.

And that was like the beginning stages of...

what we know right now as hip-hop.

The break became the whole record for us.

The 11 DJs who started disco.

We all played that.

No matter how you slice it and dice it,

this will definitely go down on the hip-hop archives

as one of the sacred greats.

If it wasn't for songs like these,

there would have been no hip-hop.

It was one of the sacred greats of disco.

That record is still champion.

When it jumps on the track,

people who've never heard it before...

they're moving.

People who'd heard it before is like, "Oh!

That's my shit! Oh!"

Guys, there's Cymande. Yo!

# Listen brothers,

# this has got a lot to do with you

# And my sisters,

# it also does concern you too

The marchers were demonstrating

against a shooting death by police last Saturday.

The police were stretched across the marchers' path,

determined to stop them.

I'm playing their records

and as I'm listening to the lyrics,

it's resonate for the struggle

that was going on here in the States in the 70s.

Violence flared.

Some of the crowd running for safety.

We'd listen to Marvin and other different sounds,

speaking on experience,

and they fit right along with it.

Protest leaders say they'll schedule other marches

because they are tired of being sick and tired

of injustices against Blacks.

Everybody can identify

the same situation they're dealing with.

# You've got to act now, act now

# Come around one day you'll see

# People will treat it as their destiny

Cymande was about civil rights and human rights

and fighting against the struggles that you faced.

The system was working against Black people.

Prejudice in school, prejudice in work.

And in particular prejudice in the way that we were dealt with

by the police.

As a young person in the 60s and 70s,

I had the police standing in my face and standing on my toes

almost daring you to do something

so that they would have an excuse to arrest you.

I was driving early.

At the age of 17, 18 I was driving

so I was always being stopped.

A lot of young Black people being criminalised easily.

A suitable representation needed to be provided.

In my mind I'd always planned to be a lawyer.

# Get your minds together,

# Doing what you know is right

It was a no-brainer in a way to go to law.

# You must make a stand one day

After the band came off the road

we both started our families.

So your responsibility went beyond the self now.

All the energies were directed

towards achieving for ourselves

and in that way being in the position

to provide the privileges

that we were deprived of to some extent.

We didn't come off the road to go on the dole.

We just found a different way

of contributing to our community.

REPORTER:The Notting Hill carnival

became the scene of clashes

between police and Black youths.

It's believed that the trouble was the result

of an excessive police presence

and aggravated racial tension.

In Brixton, police cars on fire

after an attempt to arrest a Black youth

in what they call the Frontline area.

There's overturned cars in the streets,

there's Molotov cocktails.

If something is not done at the present time,

it's going to be a highly explosive situation.

The spate of rioting

has been going on now every night for over a week.

These current riots were caused originally

by specific grievances among Blacks.

I remember the riots here in Brixton in 1981.

And I was a young foot soldier here then.

The Notting Hill riots in the 70s.

I was part of that, I saw it firsthand...

what it's like when you oppress a people.

At that time I was very politically motivated.

I was an angry young man

and I was able to say the things I wanted to say

and get my point across...

by the music I played.

While the hip-hop culture was emerging

through the early to mid-80s in the States,

we had our own music culture renaissance going on here,

which I loosely dubbed Rare Groove.

That scene grew out of my radio show.

I never had the dexterity and skills

of my American cousins and brothers,

but what I did do was have the knowledge.

I would be cracking Cymande from the 70s.

I come from quite a big family.

All my brothers were like DJs or sound men, so...

Some of us knew.

I'd be the second generation born and raised here.

I was looking for my identity.

As crate digger and a lover for music,

Cymande must have fallen from the sky for me.

# People need more time

Their thing was gritty, was raw.

To me it was a real sound.

It's real, you know.

And in its creativity, it just has depth.

The first band that had come along

that tapped all my cultural buttons.

Their music isn't frivolous, it's not throw-away.

It's thought about, it provokes reaction.

It's challenging, it confronts you.

And it makes you dance.

People like myself and Norman were the instigators

of literally breaking the music.

That's what it was about,

because you had that sort of platform

so sometimes you could almost dictate

what's going to be the cracker, you know.

# Look around the world see people are dying...

The BBC weren't playing Cymande records.

Cymande were never going to be on Top of the Pops

in this country.

But there was a few of us who loved it,

and dared to take it onto the nation's dance floors

and try something with it.

And we got a positive response to it.

It was like a frenzy.

You were just feeding the people these kind of tunes,

giving birth, re-birth, to this next generation.

This is an original of a Cymande session.

Of "Zion I".

I think this is the only one left out

of the original recording session.

And I got it through a mutual friend of John Schroeder.

And he wondered if I'd heard about a band called Cyanide.

I said, "Are you sure it's Cyanide?"

He said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure."

I said, "What's the spelling?"

He spelled it for me. I said, "No, it's pronounced this way."

He said, "How do you know?"

I said, "I used to play with them."

"I'm on that album."

To be honest, I didn't have a plan.

I knew I wanted to play music.

And I was lucky enough

to move the people that were willing to give me a chance...

to develop.

It never entered my mind

not to do anything else but music.

After the band broke up,

Steve Scipio and I started playing

with a South African band called Jabula.

During that time was when Mandela was in prison

and we did a lot of anti-Apartheid concerts.

We were proud to know that we contributed something

towards the South African cause.

After Jabula folded and Steve went to study law,

I got into Aswad.

Some time around 1986-87,

I got this call to do Paul Simon and the Graceland tour.

Then I got together with Courtney Pine

and we formed the Jazz Warriors.

And I've been playing with Jools Holland now since 1999.

I got to play with many different famous people.

I used to pick the brains of many of those big names.

Most of them just said, "Practice!" You know?

"You want to learn to play? Practice!"

"And listen to records and practice."

So I'm still practicing.

I played with Tom Jones.

Robert Plant. And Gary Moore.

And one time I was in a band with Ben E. King.

Music makes me bubble.

And I don't mind whether it's down The Dog And Duck,

playing in front of five people

who are enjoying what I'm doing,

or playing in front of 50,000 people.

Give me a gig!

I'll be 70 this year and I'm still working.

And I've still got a zest to work.

And the day I can't do it physically any more,

I think I will suddenly become a very old man.

That's what scares me.

More than anything else.

One thing is certain.

I had a good anchorage

because my wife was always working.

She was the main breadwinner.

One woman said to my wife, "You're mad

to have this guy talking about his practicing

and you're going to work?"

I know I must be lucky or blessed.

I'm still learning to play music.

Everyday I learn something else.

Still trying to play the perfect note.

Who knows? One day I might do that.

Cymande sits right there as a soundtrack to my life.

It started with my mum.

Saturday morning, cleaning up, making breakfast.

And that's what's popping in the background.

Dancing in the living room.

We start doing robot and all types of shit.

They were part of my childhood.

I'm from the Bronx.

And I remember going down to the projects

and seeing Jazzy Jay, Afrika Bambaataa, Red Alert

playing "Bra".

The DJs would bring the systems out.

And "Bra" was one of the joints they were throwing on.

And as soon as the break part came in,

everybody would just go crazy.

Oh, man, the way it hit the speakers. Oh.

I can picture it in my head already.

The way the woofers would kick just during that...

We never knew that the band was from the UK.

We always thought it was part of New York City.

It's like they were born in New York City

'cause that's the music that we loved.

Those are the records we played.

Those are the songs that we rocked.

So, there's nothing like bringing what you grew up on

onto records that you like nowadays

and reconfiguring the songs.

# Once again, it's time to buy more soul

# A flavor you will savor in your soul

#Wax is distributed and then sold

# So watch it turn, bring your next of kin soul

The thing for us,

doing the De La recording sampling

was try to find a way to make everything that we liked

mesh together.

Now, people may not believe it, but...

If you looked through these records,

you could find things like...

drum beat solo.

This concept of being able

to take bits and pieces of other records.

We did that and took it to the next level.

You know, we just did it our way.

It's not actually stealing.

It's like bringing back the old song,

making old songs new again,

making people like it, you know, even more.

There was so much going on in those records,

you're kind of in a friendly competition

with the people you're in this genre with.

So, you go back and you're listening to the same records

and you go, "You missed that." You know?

And we've been caught out there the same way.

# Oh, yeah.

My mum was advising records to sample.

I missed my window with "The Message".

"Me & The Biz" was, you know, a hit record.

And she's like, "I told you!"

"I told you! I told you!"

My mother does this clap, "I told you!" You know?

And sure enough I was like, "Yeah, you got that one."

# On and on and on is how the beat goes

# So sell the British Walkers and cut the afros

The sample for �Me & the Biz� was something that I heard

Marley Marl play round the time I was working on

my first album.

And he played this loop

and immediately I was like, "What's that?"

"What's that?"

# Now this here jam is like a special kind of song

# It's not too short, but then again it's not too long

Something about their music spoke to me

and it fit what my thinking was

and what I was trying to do musically.

It sounded like incense and psychedelic lights,

and dashikis and afros.

It was a vibe.

I don't know how they found that vibe all the way in the UK,

but they found it

and it translated over here for sure.

# And it wasn't a dream. This was a nightmare.

# Mum is looking tired, Dad's feeling old

# They've been here thirty years, still ain't seen no streets of gold

# Mum packed her cases at the age of nineteen

# She was gonna go to England, she would live like the Queen

It was you that turned me onto Cymande.

I'd never heard of them before.

I picked up an album of theirs.

I felt that vibe, that cultural something.

- It's like... - Connection.

Yeah, this is me, this is real.

# She worked her fingers to the bone to make her life better

# Tried to be a citizen, they wouldn't let her

I must have been thinking, I need to write a song today.

And this is that particular track.

And the title, it was calling to me. �The Message�.

"What message, Andy, what message?"

This is what happens in these tracks.

Something about the music makes you go,

"You've got to do something serious."

Something about that track just inspired me

to write that lyric about that generation

and it just came out.

# When Dad was a lad, he was bad.

# But check him out now, he's kind of sad.

We were recording the Killer Album,

which was the first Rap Assassins album.

And this particular day

Carson came to me and said,

"Anderson's got a track about our parents.

Come and listen to it."

And instantly,

it was like, "We've got to record this."

I remember when I heard it, I was like, "Shit, Andy."

I was like, "Damn."

It's so honest and personal and...

It wasn't angry, it just laid out the facts.

You know, it was beautiful. It's beautiful.

# Young gifted and Black, they were a perfect team.

# But now they can't go back, they lost it all for a dream.

# And it wasn't a dream. This was a nightmare.

You can still groove to that album.

It's still a groove.

Funk doesn't go out of style.

Funk don't go out of style, man.

Cymande popped up a couple of times to me

over the years, in the early 80s,

which is where I met Kermit.

We did a track, and it was the first track he ever rapped on.

And it was on an album called UK Electro.

On that album as well

there was a track called "Real Time"

which also referenced Cymande.

�Real Time�, it�s bruv, isn�t it?

- Yeah. - It is.

There you go.

- What year is the album? - '84? 1984.

Wow!

So many of us have sampled Cymande over the years.

They've been very influential to house music as well.

It definitely introduced Cymande to a new generation.

There was a connection with the audience.

People may not have known them,

but they knew those records.

They've come in from New York to join us

'cause they're at number 20.

This is "Jack the Groove", Raze.

# Jack the Groove. Jack the Groove.

# Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack the Groove.

# Jack the Groove.

# Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack the Groove.

When you play their music, you always get a warm feeling.

Their percussion, the basslines.

They're truly perfect for the dance floors.

They've inspired so many musicians and producers

from different genres.

Hip-hop culture, rap culture.

House music, dance music.

Jungle, Drum and Bass.

If you wanna look back at the DNA of all of these genres...

look no further.

Cymande's music is there.

But it's like great artists.

Sometimes their work isn't appreciated

until long after they're gone.

I haven't slept yet, you know.

- I haven't slept. - Really?

No, I've been up all night.

I was playing my keyboard.

I spend a lot of time on the keyboard, you know.

The only thing that's bad with Cymande

is when the band break up.

I was very, very tore up about it.

To experience the warmth of the crowd and the people.

You know what I mean? How they relate to the music.

Especially when we went to America. Wow!

The...

The way they...

you know, welcome us there, man.

Any musician would be frustrated.

You played good music.

And you haven't fulfilled your destiny.

But the Creator has put everybody on the Earth

for a reason.

I ain�t finish...

what I was supposed to be doing.

I'm learning.

Self-taught learning.

Yeah.

My connection with Cymande is

probably through hip-hop, to be honest.

De La Soul sampled "Bra".

Whenever you find something new, especially within hip-hop,

you just start digging.

You try to figure out, "What's that sample?"

"Where's this from?" etc.

And then you go to find the original.

Guys would actually go through all your songs

and research what has been used

and then they'll go even back further down the rabbit hole

and realise that there's more great music to discover.

Hip-hop for me was pretty much responsible

for how I discovered most of my favourite music.

All the great soul and funk that I love,

and jazz I listen to now,

I know because they were sampled by Tribe

or DJ Premier,

and Gang Starr.

Then I would either go

through the bargain bins of the record shop

or go to some of the high-end record conventions and find it.

When I first was learning about sampling,

and how hip-hop took from older music,

I wrote them all down,

I wrote all the songs that I needed to find.

And I would carry that list with me.

It was such a fiend for East Coast hip-hop

because those were the origins.

And I wanted to learn about it.

So, when I would take trips back East with my family,

I would go record shopping.

And that's when I discovered "Bra".

I don't remember Cymande. I just remember "Bra".

And just I remember it started with a C and a Y after it.

At that time I always called them Cymonade.

Like lemonade. I didn't know that it was Cymande.

My musical influences were the New Birth...

A lot of old R&B stuff, Cymonade...

Dyke and the Blazers.

The hunt is really fun.

I always enjoyed going to the flea markets for hours,

going through the boxes of dirty records

and finding a gem.

That is a striking...

striking artwork that you would just pick up

if you're a serious record collector.

That feeling of destiny

when you're looking for something,

then you find it staring back at you in a record shop.

That is the moment that you live for.

Once I started listening to their albums,

it was like, "Wow! What is this?

Whatever it is, it's incredible."

It felt like I had discovered this cool new thing.

# Blessings of love

# Bringing you truth

You can hear a rock influence,

you can hear a Latin influence.

You can hear funk in there.

There's so many different sounds.

You can hear also those expansive sonic...

kind of soundscapes.

It doesn't really fit perfectly into one category

which is why I like it.

# Like a bird Floating in the sky

We start to realise all these different ideas and dynamics

come together and make something unique.

One side of you is like, "Oh, man, it's so cool!"

The other part is like, "Man, I feel dumb."

How long have I been asleep?

Now you're waking up to the magic that is Cymande.

It's very non-polarising,

very pleasing, very inclusive.

Very for everybody music.

Since playing bass,

I tend to gravitate towards basslines anyway.

Most of the time you feel it, more than you hear it.

But I actually think in Cymande's music...

it does speak.

The reason I focus so much on bassline melodies

is because of Cymande and Steve.

This is making me feel something emotionally.

And that's why I was so adamant

about sharing this band

with Wil-Dog from Ozomatli.

It's weird to think that us

in the early 90s

thought we were cool

'cause we were listening to music from the 70s.

Like, "We're cool because we know about some new shit!"

Like it's like 20 years later.

There was like a fraternity. "Oh, okay, I can hang with you."

- It's the secret password. - It really is.

When I would play Cymande,

I would see who in the room would pay attention.

That little test to see if people were on the level.

Nothing beats that feeling

of coming back from a night out

or having a few people around and it gets a bit late

and you're just like, "Hang on till I blow your minds."

When you find something like that,

the first thing you want to do is share it or tell someone.

"Look at this awesome thing that I discovered."

When my buddy played me "Dove" for the first time,

I can still see it in my mind

'cause it was that powerful of a moment.

So, when you hear a life-changing song,

it's like a holy thing.

It's magic.

What a gift!

Wanting to turn people onto Cymande

kept their legacy going.

And it was building and building and getting stronger.

These records were discovered

but then they became more than that

and joined a larger kind of spiritual musical world

that was embraced by so many people,

from skaters to jazz people,

to soul people, to folk people.

African, Jamaican, English.

It doesn't matter. We could talk to like a punk guy.

You'd be like, "Oh yeah, that's Cymande, right? It's the Bible".

They'd be like, "Damn right!" And I'm not a hip-hop kid.

Not many music goes through those passages.

It doesn't have that length, it doesn't have that phat.

I found them.

It was like me on my own at a young age

discovering a music even my parents didn't know about.

It was just the internet, the explosion of the internet.

I heard Fugees and then I heard Cymande.

Then finding them on 3 Feet High and Rising.

And you'd click on those

and find your way through more samples

until you were on the same album

the sample came from

but it was stuff that hadn't been listened to yet.

To me that's the newer music in my head.

Like Cymande is the more current stuff...

To me, that's the stuff I've got a younger relationship with.

I felt it was a responsibility to pass it on

and elevate their voice

and then hopefully be an inspiration

to younger artists than me

to see that you can speak your truth

and it can still be universal.

We're so saturated with access to music now.

You can basically listen to anything

from any era any time you want.

Their music continues to float to the top.

I'll still get messages from folks who are like,

"Have you heard this?"

I'm like...

"No, I've never heard them before.

That's wonderful. Thanks for sending that to me."

There's that expression

"The arc of history bends to the just".

All the really great shit

is actually going to be discovered somehow

even if it wasn't discovered at the time of its inception

or when they first released it.

The recognition from all of these people

who came to the party late

after the event,

that has given the band a new lease of life.

The music was strong enough not to die.

# Brothers on the slide.

# Working on the wrong side.

#

# You can't win so you know you must lose.

# Which way we're going.

My eldest son is a DJ.

And he would ring me up and say, "Dad, Dad,

I just heard 'Bra' or 'The Message' in the car."

Often I would just be doing a gig

and he'd be playing Cymande tracks

while I'm loading my gear in my car.

And I was like, "Yeah."

My chest is out like, "Yeah. I'm proud of that."

It's something that wouldn't just lie down.

Every once in a while we'd hear something.

We started becoming aware

that something was happening with our music.

A new interest.

We knew of the use of Cymande's material

with sampling.

And it was nice to have your sound and music

appreciated in that way.

It brought in some money also,

you know, which is never a bad thing.

But the recognition of the band

in terms of audience and fan base,

that was a bit of a surprise.

We found out that there are so much...

fans out there...

who want to hear this music.

I was not actively involved in any way with music

from about the mid-80s.

For that period law took total precedence over everything.

But what was happening with the music

and the interest in the music...

pushed us...

towards doing something that we'd always wanted to do.

One of the most important things

is that we honour what Cymande has done.

When we stopped working in the 70s,

it felt unfinished.

We will have to see in my day.

Well, we're still alive, first of all.

We were not suffering from arthritis.

I always had it in my mind

that the band was going to come back together.

So when it happened, I wasn't surprised

because that was my intention.

I didn't know they would have taken so long.

Yeah!

I met Pablo after 17 years, at a church

and I saw this guy coming in.

I said, "What's happening, Dred?"

"Hello."

And he's gone. Didn't recognize me.

Someone told him that Derek is inside there.

He said, "Is he?"

And then he came up to me, you know, and said,

"Have you heard the news?

The guys are going to get the band back together again."

I still wasn't interested.

I didn't play the saxophone for 40 years.

I said, "What do you mean you're not playing anymore?

That's what you're supposed to do, man.

You ain't doing anything else 'cause that's you."

He said he didn't have an instrument.

I said, "Buy an instrument, man.

He start again."

He keeps on and on

and I'm retiring anyhow so...

It's something to do.

It wasn�t easy.

They say once you learn to ride a bicycle

you never forget.

But obviously the physical side of it had to be worked on.

One day we had a long rehearsal.

And the next morning I woke up and I looked in the mirror

and I was, "Oh."

Bloody hell, man!

You know, my face was swollen.

Well, I put the time in...

to get it together.

Someone said to me,

"Pretend you're in the basement in Brixton.

Don't let it overpower you.

Just get on with it."

The very first show we did

was not what I expected.

Okay, let's go.

When we walked on, I remember looking out there

and seeing all these kids.

Young people who knew our music.

They knew it well.

And how excited they were

at seeing the band in action.

It's certainly something I'm proud of.

It was a mind-blowing experience.

I thought we'd have some of the grannies...

and the granddads in there.

When you see the people dancing in the aisle,

you're thinking, "Well, we're getting something back here."

So you just keep going.

Please welcome to the stage...

the amazing, historical,

seminal group, Cymande!

Yeah!

I thought never in my life would I see them.

And when you saw them play

and just the joy and realisation for them

that "Hey, your music wasn't forgotten.

Hey, your music is important.

You know, people are here to show you

that they care about you and they love you."

I didn't even think that I would see you there

or like hit you up at the Cymande...

I just...when I saw you, I was like, "Oh, of course!"

That's exactly how it felt, I was like,

"It makes perfect sense".

- And I never go out anymore. - I don't either.

Wil-Dog introduced me to his friend

as like "the guy that turned me onto Cymande."

And I was like, you know, "That was my job in the early '90s

here in LA to do that."

I haven't seen Wil in a while and to just kind of remember,

"Oh, yeah, man. We got the Cymande thing going on.

Like that secret password thing."

"Cool. He remembers. He didn't let go of that."

That meant a lot, you know?

And everybody else. Nobody lets go of Cymande.

That shit is forever.

Once you're introduced to it,

that relationship's with you for life.

Those first times you hear the things

that mean the most to you,

you remember the people that you shared it with.

And I think we all have...

these memories of our favourite times when that happened.

This music has forged important friendships and relationships

in my life.

There was a connection that we all shared with this music.

And you can now speak this language of Cymande.

Thank you!

Bataclan!

Our hearts go out to you.

You know this is "The Message".

Some time ago, "The Message" was covered by a French artist.

MC Solaar in the house!

When the DJs choose Cymande,

it was like a revolution for the people.

Bouge De L�.

French people were totally surprised by your music

because It was totally different.

Bouge De L�.

The first time we hear this "Bouge De L�,"

all the French, Black, white, Arab,

everybody would buy hip-hop.

Bouge De L�.

Cymande's music has been sampled a lot.

We like the fact that people have found our music

inspirational in that way.

They rocked the place since the beginning.

MC and other guys, they have enabled us

to be introduced to a wider youthful audience.

It's fantastic!

I want to say "Thank you" to you

you know, because we represent French rap,

bless and bless and bless

because French rap didn't exist.

It's from MC Solaar and this song "Bouge De L�".

Thank you!

Thank you so much! Love French music.

Thank you, man!

Thank you, brother.

Having created something 40 years ago

that today is appreciated by an entirely new generation,

it's a fantastic feeling.

It gives value and worth to what you've done.

This is the Craig Charles' Funk and Soul Show

on BBC Radio 6 Music.

Hold my calls. I can't speak to anyone.

I have got the legends who are Cymande in the studio.

How are you doing, guys?

Yeah, man. Great to be here.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

When everyone else was listening to Pink Floyd

and Black Sabbath,

I was listening to these guys.

You, Sir, in the beanie hat, who are you, what do you play?

Derek Gibbs.

Derek Gibbs? You're a sax player, aren't you?

I try to.

For me it's better than having Earth, Wind & Fire

walk into the studio and start tuning up.

Bammi, I know you from the Jazz Warriors,

Courtney Pine, Jools Holland.

What's it like getting back together

and being on the road again?

Well, my wife thinks I'm having a wonderful time.

Oh, man! My mum is going to love this!

You understand you're in my mother's collection.

When meeting Cymande,

I was like a kid in a candy store.

You guys are here!

To have them disappear and all of a sudden regroup again

and we are somewhat the catalyst for it,

that's beautiful!

Oh!

So dope!

Dope!

Touch that. You touch that.

Please, touch that!

It's unbelievable that I got you all in my dungeon right now.

Something really, really cool happened to me earlier today.

I got the opportunity

to meet the first group that I sampled.

The name of the group is Cymande. Heard of them before?

If I played any part

in bringing light back to the group,

if my record in any way opened the door

for them to get back into the game,

I'm happy to be a part of that history

and I'm glad that I was able to play a role

in Cymande's bringing it back

and doing it again

and hitting the scene and, 70 years old or not,

put their thing down, put their groove down.

Good night. God bless you!

Thank you!

Thank you, MC Solaar!

Good night! God bless you!

Thanks for coming in.

You are heroes of mine,

the audience on my show, anyway,

we all absolutely love you and good luck.

Thank you.

I'm not at 100 today.

I'm about...

seventy-five.

I was an asthmatic child from birth.

If I cough...

they collapse. If I sneeze, they collapse.

So fragile, them lungs.

You know, so...

It's a terrible thing...

breathing, you know.

But...

You know, you have to go through that barrier.

Mind over matter.

We did one gig

where Pablo actually got out of his hospital bed

to come and play with the band.

That's his hospital tag that he still got on.

And I'm thinking when we got back from that,

he went back into hospital.

Yeah.

No, it's not going to stop beating.

It's trying to.

But I'm fighting.

I'm fighting from when I was born, you know?

It's a lot...

It's a lot of years.

A lot of years.

When we put the band back together

after a long period of time,

there was a security in doing it at the core.

But we needed other musicians to assist us.

- You want me to sign on this? - Well, yeah, because...

the value's going to increase by a substantial amount

with your signature on it.

This is one of the first records I've bought.

So, a big influence in my life at the time, you know,

and it encouraged me to go on making music.

And then years later,

I got a call to be part of the crew.

What do you reckon? Double bubble?

We've been lucky in getting people

who have had their own careers

and built their own reputations

as musicians.

# I already got you back.

# I don't even know your name.

I was born in Brixton and Crawshay Road...

That was the place that Cymande rehearsed.

And my memories is running home from school,

you could hear the music from outside anyway,

and I'd be down there in the basement

just sitting uninvited.

But I just sat on that step...

and be marvelled,

'cause it was something else.

This is kind of a 45th anniversary reunion.

We're not from America.

A lot of people thought we were,

but we are from Balham and Brixton.

Bless, this is Cymande.

It's a shame that they haven't been recognised

as much as other great bands,

but I think the fact that we're talking about them today

speaks volumes.

Just think of all the billions of bands

that are not being talked about.

People like Cymande give me hope that maybe one day

I can reach more people and become relevant

to a generation that wasn't there

when I was making music.

It's hard to fathom that could be a possibility.

And I probably never would have thought

it was a possibility before them.

I always joke, maybe 1,000 years from now,

some kid will find some MP3 with one of my songs on it.

So I could feel like I failed,

but maybe 1,000 years from now

I'll be a huge success.

That's how limitless music is.

The energy signals the appreciation of the music.

And that appreciation,

it doesn't matter what era it comes in,

it's wonderful to have it.

But more importantly,

it says, "It doesn't matter what the music industry does,

give the people the chance

and they'll tell you what they want."

One of the ways to recognise

that we're now a multiracial society,

is to understand each other through our arts.

In the past, Britain has absorbed many other cultures.

Now we're trying to absorb the gifts

that minorities like the West Indians

have to offer today.

To reject them now only impoverishes ourselves.

It frustrates those who want to give,

those who perhaps feel the barrier's against you.

All it asks, like the people who make it,

is the chance to be heard, understood and enjoyed.

Our story is of success.

You achieved your successes despite that disadvantage.

I mean, that really is what the success is about.

The way it's happened for them is the best way.

We show that we can do these things

and we can stick to something.

We don't have to change to become like everybody else.

That's what I think we represent.

I'm glad they stuck to their guns, man,

delivering music

truly from their spirit, their souls.

And it's going to keep transcending generations...

because, yes, it is timeless.

The world needs to know this band.

They changed music for me.

And if you hear them, they'll change it for you as well.

I guarantee it.

It's not sinking in.

I suppose I'm like that as a person anyway.

But probably years later,

I'll probably start thinking, "Oh, right.

I did all that. Wow!"

It's been a long journey,

but it's not a journey we want to see end right now.

When you see Cymande,

the reincarnation of what that is,

it's another breath.

And that's how much life the music has.

It can't end, it won't stop.

Cymande is on a different dimension now,

but it still has that sound.

I think the band's going places.

Who knows?

It's quite possible that another hit might come out of it.

We don't rule out anything.

To be continued.

Yeah.

Good night. God bless you! Thank you!

Thank you!

Good night, brother.

- Excellent, Sir. - God bless you.

Absolutely excellent.

Thank you.

The people, the people.

It's all about the people.

Power to the people, my brother.

The people tell you what it's all about.

Don't worry about me.

It's up to the fans.

They know what's going down.

They dictate.

They know what they want to know

what they want to hear.

Thank you, my brother, thank you.

- Well done, Pablo. - Great stuff.

- Great stuff. - Power to the people, man.

And right on.