national holiday the next day and a big party night that night I
tagged along with some folks I met to a club called "Zen". The
friend I went to the last club with said he would never be caught
dead in the place, but I couldn't see a huge amount of difference...
except that this place was maybe just a touch trashier.
Through some awesome personal connect we got in free, and then some
Canadians in the big corporate part of the software biz were high
rolling there with a bunch of booze to offer us, so that part worked
out well. There were pretty big name producers from Jamaica
deejaying (I think they made the riddim to Sean Paul's "We be
burning'" for example) so that worked out well too.
The deejays more or less did a straight dancehall set, with just a
few big soca jams thrown in (including a soca "Time After Time" and
"Take on Me"). The set was pretty ADHD--no one song for more than 90
seconds. They didn't do any long mixes of songs on one riddim, which
surprised me; I guess that's out now.
We got in free, but we also got into the VIP section free, which
included a packed-like-sardines but heavily air conditioned hip hop
room, and a balcony where you could watch the crowd below. We spent
all our time on the balcony.
There was some excellent dancing, but it was heavily interfered with
by people's club agendas. There were pockets of people (both girls
and guys) who left their agenda at home or decided that the best way
of pursuing it was to just dance and look awesome. Seeing people do
the dance to "badman move forward badman pull up" was pretty great.
But I definitely felt like dancehall works better as an injection of
sexual aggressiveness into a friends-having-fun party than it does in
an already sexually aggressive club setting. Techno (for being just
energy) or house (for being sexual in an abstract way) both work
better for me in clubs.
Seeing guys with "dorky Indian guy" style griding dorkily with girls
gorgeous and not at all wining dorkily was--and I'm not sure of the
right word--empowering, maybe?
Right before we left there was some incredible dancing on the bar.
At least least one woman (in a sort of punk rock / bondage club
outfit and half shaved hairdo looking something like Pink in the
videos for one of the angstier songs the Four Non Blondes lady wrote)
was not at all dancing for male attention (some were) and seemed to
not give a flying fuck. And she was trying really hard in a really
endearing way to get this big woman who'd danced on stage earlier
(and really well-- the DJs said she had it lock) to come up on the
bar. She was shaking her head resisting, and if she finally caved we
left before that.
My sense is that Carnival for Trinidad is this big release from
having to party in clubs or club-like atmospheres. I'd like to see
that.
