From the CUFF Guide: “In the chaos of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park, a teenage usher named Vince Lawrence witnessed the fiery backlash against disco—a sound that defined freedom and pride. Undeterred by the hostility, Vince used his earnings to buy a synthesizer, setting in motion a journey that would change music forever. Venturing into the underground sanctuary of The Warehouse, where Frankie Knuckles spun revolutionary sounds, Vince teamed up with Jesse Saunders to form Z Factor, a scrappy collective of visionaries who captured the pulse of Chicago’s underground on wax. Their track, “On and On,” became the first recorded house music anthem, sparking a movement that transformed a local DIY culture into a global phenomenon. From those gritty Chicago streets to festival stages worldwide, Vince’s story is an electrifying testament to how a dream, born in the ashes of rejection, ignited a genre that continues to unite and liberate people across the globe.”

Directed by Elegance Bratton, this has Vince Lawrence tell the story of house and how it grew out of disco, which people believe died but come on. We know that isn’t true. This breaks down how rock bands felt threatened by disco and how Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979 was a way of fighting back. But what was a way for Steve Dahl to push back against disco replacing rock turned into racism, as this movie tells us. Some saw it as a targeted attack on black music.

Vince Lawrence was there that night working as an usher, saving for a synthesizer. He said when people were saying “Disco sucks,” it started to feel like they were saying it to him. And then he had to go home through Bridgeport, worried he would be made fun of, attacked or much worse. Steve Dahl got in trouble for a publicity stunt but it was out of control and an event that destroyed black art as some of the records were Motown, not disco.

In “The Flip Sides of ’79” in Rolling Stone, writer Dave Marsh said, “The antidisco movement, which has been publicized by such FM personalities as notorious Chicago DJ Steve Dahl, is simply another programming device. White males, eighteen to thirty-four, are the most likely to see disco as the product of homosexuals, blacks and Latins, and therefore they’re most likely to respond to appeals to wipe out such threats to their security. It goes almost without saying that such appeals are racist and sexist, but broadcasting has never been an especially civil-libertarian medium.” He also told Today, ““I was appalled,” remembers Marsh. “It was your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead. It was everything you had feared come to life. Dahl didn’t come from Top 40 radio, he came from album rock radio, which was fighting to heighten its profile.”

In that same article, Gloria Gaynor said, “Disco never got credit for being the first and only music ever to transcend all nationalities, race, creed, color, and age groups. It was common ground for everyone.”

That’s where the movie gets into how disco gave birth to “a couple babies:” house and hip-hop. The difference, according to several in this, is that hip-hop led to violence and disrespect. House brought people together and house became a safe party with no gangsters, because, “everyone was gay.”

I really liked how the movie breaks down the song “Fantasy,” who thinks they wrote it and how the black artists felt disrespected by the white singer, Rachael Cain (who is also part of the Michael Alig NYC club scene and ended up owning Trax Records). I also liked how so much of early house was one drum machine and one synth. Nothing else. Just noise and beat; the DJ became the focal point; not a band. Not a real drummer.

Also an interesting point that this film brings up is how black culture is always stolen from. Today, the most famous house musicians are white. House was stolen by white culture. Techno was taken from Detroit. EDM stole from black music. The creators of house never saw the money that other musicians did after them.

This is recommended, as it shines a light into a form of music I’d always wanted to know more about. Now, I want to go deeper and learn more about the personalities and songs that this has introduced me to.

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.