Brace yourselves, culture disruptors—Mr. KanHey is about to dig up the buried bones of America’s dance floor history, and yes, they still rattle with systemic sound and fury.
The disco ball didn’t just shatter—it exploded. And inside that explosion? Vinyl crackle, sweat-soaked joy, queer liberation, Black expression, and at its angry, bitter core—racism. “Disco Demolition Night,” that infamous riot-of-a-radio-promo-turned-cultural-coup in 1979 Chicago? It wasn’t just a tantrum over turntables. It was the soundtrack of a country recoiling against the groove of the other.
Enter *Move Ya Body*—a soul-shaking, ear-thrumming, truth-slinging new doc that just slammed its way into the Tribeca Film Festival like a glitter bomb at a funeral. Directed by unapologetic auteur Elegance Bratton, this film isn’t soft lighting and nostalgia montages. Oh no. It’s rage, rhythm, and revelation. And in the middle of its pulsing heartbeat? House music forefather and sonic revolutionary, Vince Lawrence.
Now, Vince ain’t just a name in liner notes. He’s the guy who helped birth house music in a city still bleeding from the puncture wounds of Disco Demolition—a night when thousands of white rock fans gathered like a mob and turned Comiskey Park into a record-burning spectacle of hate disguised as rebellion.
In the doc’s jaw-dropping clip, Lawrence revisits that explosive night, peeling back the glitter to expose the gritty truth: that it wasn’t just disco that got assassinated—it was Black culture, queer freedom, and every body that dared to dance their truth in a world built to silence them. “It wasn’t just about music,” he says. “It was about who was being allowed to celebrate themselves.”
Say it louder for the people in the cheap seats.
You see, house music wasn’t born in a club, it was born in resistance. It rose from the ashes of shattered disco, conjured by Black and brown Chicago kids armed with drum machines and dream-churned vinyl. It was synthetic rebellion. A sweat-drenched sanctuary. A future forged in the face of white America’s cultural meltdown. And honey, Vince Lawrence was at the command deck.
Bratton, fresh off his soul-scorching debut *The Inspection*, directs with a filmmaker’s eye and a freedom fighter’s fire. He doesn’t spoon-feed history—he laces it with flashing lights, kicks it straight to your consciousness, and dares you to sit still. Spoiler alert: you can’t.
Let’s get real, y’all. Culture doesn’t move forward without shaking the foundation, and *Move Ya Body* drills through concrete legacy to reveal roots deeper than rhythm. The doc dares to ask: who gets to dance? Who gets to make the beat? And who gets to erase it when they’re threatened by too much fabulous?
We’ve been hypnotized into thinking Disco Demolition was just boys being boys, blowing up Bee Gees records and yelling about “bad taste.” But no baby, that was fear. That was the ugly recoil of a society watching the marginalized step into the spotlight—and deciding to cut the power.
Well, the power’s back. The beat never really stopped. And now, with *Move Ya Body*, the world gets to hear the untold origin story of house—a genre that refused to die, evolved into global pulse, and gave so many of us the music to rise with.
So here’s the drop: if you thought dance music was just party fuel, you missed the point. House is resistance with a BPM. And every four-on-the-floor beat? It’s a revolution in disguise. Lawrence, Bratton, and the fearless creators behind *Move Ya Body* are the DJs of disruption. And trust me, they’re only getting started.
Dare to be different or fade into oblivion.
– Mr. KanHey
