Disco never truly died, but that doesn't mean its early iterations weren't threatened with extinction by the powers that be. As such, DISCO'S REVENGE, a new feature-length documentary set to hit VOD on January 7, has charted the unkillable genre's rise, fall and rebirth.
Directed by Omar Majeed and Peter Mishara, the film features interviews with Chic's Nile Rodgers, Billy Porter, LaBelle's Nona Hendryx, Grandmaster Flash, Fab Five Freddy, Nicky Siano, the Trammps' Earl Young, Jellybean Benitez, Kevin Saunderson, Sylvester and Weather Girls' Martha Wash.
A synopsis reads:
In the early '70s, the beat child of New York's Black and LGBTQ+ communities [were] born on the city's underground dance floors. Disco emerged as an exuberant musical genre, a vital social movement and a vibrant culture before enduring a vicious backlash nearly a decade later. In our collective pop-culture imagination, Disco's merely a fad relegated to soft-focus memories of Saturday Night Fever and Studio 54.
It is a pulsating deep dive into the very soul of disco music and its enduring impact across genres and history, told by the people who created it, nurtured it, and in turn, discovered themselves on the dance floor. The film asks: Why does disco matter and, in these divisive times, why does disco matter now more than ever?
Watch the trailer below.