Again in 1973, Cymande (pronounced “sah-mahn-day”) was poised to make a sustained worldwide splash. The U.Okay. band’s debut single, “The Message,” cracked the highest 50 of Billboard’s Scorching 100 chart, and Cymande’s funk-infused stew of rock, soul, jazz, calypso, reggae and African strains was being hailed as groundbreaking.
Over the course of some busy years, the band launched two extra LPs below the watch of British R&B producer John Schroeder, who first got here throughout the high-energy group in a Soho membership in 1971. Cymande toured the US with Al Inexperienced, Ramsey Lewis and different luminaries, changing into the primary British band to headline New York’s legendary Apollo Theater.
However by the shut of the ’70s, Cymande had taken itself out of the combo. (Extra on that later.) In the meantime, over the following twenty years, because the burgeoning hip-hop scene bought pattern glad, a type of underdog mystique took maintain. Cymande all of the sudden had new high-profile advocates in Fugees, Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and Spike Lee. Cymande cofounders Steve Scipio and Patrick Patterson initiated a long-overdue Cymande reunion in 2011, and the band launched A Easy Act Of Religion with Schroeder again on the controls.
Extra recognition got here within the type of Getting It Again: The Story Of Cymande, a documentary from award-winning director Tim Mackenzie-Smith, which debuted at South By Southwest in 2022 and has since made it world wide twice. The movie options interviews with Louie Vega, Mark Ronson, Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B, De La Soul’s DJ Maseo, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and others. Now there’s Renascence (BMG), produced by mixing ace Ben Baptie and billed as the right “religious and sonic” follow-up to 1974’s Promised Heights. Jazzie B makes an look on the brand new LP, as does award-winning British vocalist Celeste.
Scipio and Patterson grew up on the identical road in south London. Their mother and father got here to England within the Fifties from the South American nation of Guyana as a part of a mass immigration orchestrated by the British authorities. Each boys confronted discrimination from an early age. Music was their escape. They speak extra about Cymande’s newest resurgence under.
A half-century later, how does it really feel to be getting all this belated recognition?
There’s just one phrase that might adequately describe the sensation: unbelievable. It’s unbelievable to see our music and its message acknowledged and appreciated by older and youthful generations in any case this time. Second, it’s unbelievable that Cymande is now acknowledged and appreciated as a band of relevance that was, and continues to be, very influential for a lot of the music of immediately. Contemplating the dearth of curiosity from the U.Okay. music business within the ’70s, there’s a sense of vindication for us in what we have been attempting to speak with our music on the time.
What was it like working with Ben Baptie on Renascence?
It was a pleasure, each personally and professionally. Ben is a wonderful producer, and his abilities have been good for Cymande’s wants. We should additionally give credit score to Michael Orchudesch, then A&R for BMG, for placing us collectively. Excellent alternative.
Is that this a full-fledged Cymande reunion?
When the choice was made in 2011 to deliver the band again collectively, that reunion had six authentic members. However with the passage of time, it turned tough for a few of us to proceed. The present lineup does have the 2 of us, the founding members and writers of a lot of the materials on all of the Cymande albums. Our present vocalist, Ray Simpson, additionally contributed to a lot of the fabric for the brand new album.
What prompted Cymande’s preliminary exit from the music business within the late ’70s, and what did all of you do to remain busy through the prolonged hiatus?
Having achieved the extent of success and recognition we did within the United States in 1973, it was extraordinarily disappointing to return to our dwelling nation and proceed to be ignored—as had been the case earlier than we left. We weren’t ready to permit the U.Okay. music business to proceed denying Cymande the popularity we felt the band rightly deserved. It was a matter of dignity. Initially, we determined to take the band off the highway for a brief interval—to return when the local weather within the U.Okay. may change. It simply so occurred that the brief break turned out to be about 4 a long time.
Throughout the hiatus, we each labored as attorneys, however we remained concerned with the music business. A few of the different authentic members continued enjoying and creating their artwork as musicians. Others, maybe reflecting their disappointment with the music business, ceased enjoying solely—a minimum of till we known as all of them again collectively in 2011.
How did the hip-hop explosion of the ’80s and ’90s revive curiosity in Cymande?
We will’t to talk to what the catalyst was for the renewed curiosity. No matter it was, we’re extraordinarily appreciative of the truth that it occurred. We’d prefer to assume the youthful technology acknowledges that Cymande’s music has worth and a severe message that’s timeless and resonates with their very own life experiences. We now have to provide because of the likes of De La Soul, Fugees, Gang Starr, Raze, Masta Ace, MC Solaar and Queen Latifa, to call a couple of. Had it not been for them, the music business may’ve succeeded in maintaining our music buried.
—Hobart Rowland
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