Don't be deceived by the evenings that look tame at the beginning. Met a friend at a carwash on Nairobi's Muthangari Drive recently. He was with friends, unknown to me. At 8pm one friend says, "I want to dance. Where can I dance?" Off we went to a place you can't dance; Replay Lounge. It was early, music was enticing. Someone ordered a bottle of whisky. At 11pm that same someone cried, "I can't dance here!" Someone suggested Imaara Mall, rooftop. Never heard of it. This is when I should have paid my bill and gone home. But I didn't. The Art Club, it turned out, was a real club. Massive space. Full at that hour. As soon as we sat down, a gigantic man with a trunk for a torso came and growled. "This is for bottle service only." One of my friends said, "And who said we can't afford a bottle? Eh? Do we look like we can't afford a bottle?" He is tiny. It's always the tiny ones that want to throw a punch. Anyway, we bought a bottle and Goliath stepped away. The place was thumping. Music, lights, and gyrating bodies. I can't remember the last time I was in a club, which meant I didn't recall how stuffy the VIP section is with its insufferable characters, posturing, manspreading, and acting like Kings with small imaginary crowns. At exactly 1am, when I was just thinking of going home, the music stopped, and the deejay said something about Manchester United and the whole place erupted with both boos and cheers. It was nuts. Football fans are all lunatics, extremists. I looked over at the deejay deck, and it was DJ Grauchi in a white t-shirt. DJ Grauchi reminds me of Covid, of isolation. He's the soundtrack of that difficult zeitgeist. And he is damn, good. He did short sets of electrifying music, back to back, hit after hit. What a talent. What a night. I Irish exited at 4am. My whole body was still vibrating in the cab on my way home. ? bikozulu@gmail.com
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