Time: 7PM
SYNOPSIS:
I Want My Name Back (dir. Roger Paradiso, USA, 2011, 93 min., BD)
“I Want My Name Back” highlights the rise and fall of former original members of the Sugarhill Gang, Master Gee and Wonder Mike. As original writers and rappers, Master Gee and Wonder Mike were the creative leaders of the Sugarhill Gang who recorded the biggest selling Hip-Hop single of all time called “Rapper’s Delight”. The album with that distinctive cover went platinum. The Sugarhill Gang is widely credited with introducing the world to Hip-Hop music in 1979. We go back in time with Master Gee and Wonder Mike as they recreate the beginning of commercial Hip-Hop. We follow their story as they tour the world for five years and follow up with songs like “Apache”, “8th Wonder” and “Living in the Fast Lane”.
However, in one of the biggest swindles in music history (which is saying something), the platinum-selling group not only had their profits and publishing rights stolen from them by their mob-financed label Sugar Hill Records, but their names as well: the label took founding members Wonder Mike and Master Gee’s names off of recordings that they wrote and performed, and even trademarked the group name—and Mike and Gee’s own stage names—by providing false documents. Featuring testimony from fellow artists, music-industry insiders, fans, music journalists and the original Sugarhill Gang members themselves, “I Want My Name Back” chronicles Mike and Gee’s thirty-year battle with Sugar Hill Records to reclaim their rights and recognition as hip hop pioneers. (Synopsis provided by Game Seven Productions.)
Presented by: 89.3 the Current