‘Move Ya Body: The Birth of House’ Review: Celebratory Doc About a Genre’s Origins Plays Like a Party
“Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” tells the story of how house music was born in the late 1970s. A history reconstructed by director Elegance Bratton (“The Inspection”) through the memories of the trailblazers who birthed it at underground clubs in racially segregated and violent Chicago, this is the story of how Black, brown and queer kids came up with a unique rhythm that people still dance to today. After watching this entertaining and nostalgic documentary, audiences’ most likely recourse may be to find the nearest club and spend the rest of their night dancing.
The first few minutes of “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” dynamically set the stage for this revolution: Voiceover describes music whose beat “can be heard blocks away,” while the images show Chicago’s denizens rioting against the police and dancing all night. Bratton introduces his main protagonist, Vince Lawrence, who claims nervousness about the endeavor. Off camera, the director assures him that “it’s not about you” — a fallacy since the film reveals how Lawrence emerged from the racism and conflict that formed him to make music rooted in his culture and environment. But “Move Ya Body” also encompasses the stories of Lawrence’s friends and collaborators, a few kids from Chicago who came together and made music history.
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Interviewing a multitude of people, Bratton starts with the infamous disco demolition incident in July 1979. Fans of rock ’n’ roll, particularly a radio DJ named Steve Dahl, were angry at the popularity of disco, which they saw as music made by and for Black and queer people, so they planned an event to destroy disco records at a baseball match. The whole thing became a riot tinged with homophobia and racism. Lawrence was there that night witnessing firsthand this event that hastened the end of disco but also birthed hip-hop and house.
From then on, Bratton propulsively takes the audience on a whirlwind journey showcasing the hustle of the pioneers of house. He uses reenactments with actors to tell Lawrence’s story. Juxtaposing that with short informative snippets of interviews, archival music and dance interludes, the film takes on a fast rhythm. The film relies appropriately little on archival news footage, since this is a story that media got wrong at the time of its inception. The blending of these diverse elements takes on the rhythm of house music. While there’s more people talking than dancing and we never hear a full song, the editing adds a lively pulse to the storytelling that keeps it all moving forward entertainingly. That’s because the story itself is so amusing.
“Move Ya Body” presents clear heroes in Lawrence and cohorts such as Jesse Saunders, with whom he formed Z Factory and recorded the first house record, “On and On.” It also serves up villains, from record executives with shady business practices to artists who falsely took credit for inventing the genre. One such character is Rachael Cain. Known as Screamin’ Rachel, she confesses that she didn’t like nor understand house. When Lawrence and Saunders hired her as a singer on their first record, she accepted for monetary gain. But once the song became successful, she took credit for it. Cain is a fascinating character, and Bratton impressively gets her to confess in front of his camera. She seems clueless about how egregious what she’s saying sounds, especially when compared to Lawrence’s open-hearted and kind testimony.
The story of how Black artists’ contributions have been stolen again and again and sold as “American” (i.e. “white”) for mass consumption has been told before. It’s widely known that Little Richard was the original Elvis. Here we see how house was created in Chicago and then became popular, leading to genres like techno and EDM. “Move Ya Body” shows how white DJs became superstars in the genre, while the Black pioneers who came up with the synthesizer sound and broke the mold rarely got the appreciation they deserved. And yet, what feels new and surprising here is that no one featured on-screen — not even Bratton — demonstrates bitterness or regret. The film is above all a celebration. It promises a good time and delivers.
Showing a deep knowledge and love for house music, Bratton and his collaborators achieve what they set out to do. The people on screen do not just tell the history of what happened, but dissect beats and distinguish between the different genres of music that birthed house and that were born from it. Bratton’s experience in working with actors on “The Inspection” adds a flair to the fictional reenactments that stories told in interviews cannot match for drama. Above all, “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House Music” finally gives credit and acknowledgment to the trailblazers of this genre.
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