I Want My Name Back

Roger Paradiso:
I Want My Name Back (USA, 2011)
93 min. - English
age limit 12 years

It shouldn�€�t come as news to anyone that in the history of music business numerous musicians have been shamelessly taken advantage of. The hip hop documentary I Want My Name Back tells the story of one of the worst exploitations of all time, the story of Sugarhill Gang, the group who was the first in the world to publish a rap song.

Sugarhill Gang is a Legend. The group launched hip hop into mainstream in 1979 with the now iconic song Rapper�€�s Delight. The single sold obscene numbers, and for a few years after that the group was a welcomed visitor all around the world, until the ugly truth was revealed. The millions from record sales had gone directly to the pockets of the mafia-run record label, which had conned the copyrights of the hit songs to themselves. And this was not the end of it. As the title of the movie alludes, the band also lost its name! The record label weaseled the rights to the band and to the names of its musicians to itself, and did everything in its power to prevent the original members from using the names. Wonder Mike and Master Gee were no longer allowed to perform under the name Sugarhill Gang, nor under their own stage names. To add insult to injury, the record label manager's son took the name Master Gee to himself and started to perform.

Roger Paradiso�€�s I Want My Name Back digs through all the dirt and absurd plot twists in order to tell the story behind the hit song Rapper�€�s Delight. Simultaneously, Paradiso shows how the real Sugarhill Gang goes to battle in order to regain their legacy and the right to perform using their own names. It says something about the tenacity of these gentlemen that despite all the obstacles they won�€�t stop creating music. And of course, in the end credits of the film we will hear what everyone was waiting for, performed by the original artists!

All together now: �€�I said a hip, hop, the hippie - the hippie / To the hip hip-hop, and you don't stop�€��€�

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I Want My Name Back

Sun 18th Nov at 1:00pm Tapio 4