When I danced until the music came true

I danced all night

On a nominal scroll through Facebook and the things that get thrown in your timeline, there was a medley of lady singers that reminded me of the time I used to go clubbing almost 30 years ago in some rather sinister places in London.

Then, I danced and moved that my kidneys sometimes would have wondered why they were punished with the assemblage in my cavity. Like the words of Elvis Presley, they were definitely ‘All Shook Up!’. The dancing did keep me a little fitter but never dressed the developing stomach paunch.

The music of memories

Chart-topping performances from 1991 into 1992 were revisited by Robin S, Crystal Waters, and concluded with Ce Ce Peniston. However, the originals had me strutting my stuff like I had no care in the world, though it is rare to find clubs that lay out good Old School discs from the 80s into the 90s, like I have had to easily let my hair down in Paris or Barcelona.

This, like many of my other blogs come with memories, when I got my first Sony Walkman, I had Anita Baker, George Michael, and Madonna as my cassette tapes. Then the first vinyl record I bought after I acquired a turntable was Ce Ce Peniston’s Finally on the A-side with We Got A Love Thang on the B-side. I guess I played the A-side until the record was scratched, though it is better heard on a dancefloor than at home. [AZLyrics]

Finally, my dreams come true

I did not get a compact disc (CD) of any music until much later in the mid-90s, though, I cannot remember the first CD, I bought. Standalone DVD players after using my computer DVD drive came in 2003. Everything is now streamed, even books are shelved on devices than on bookcases, but the feel and smell of paper still have a good feeling.

However, back to Finally, the words made a lot more sense today, for it has happened to me, right in front of my face and I have pictures to prove that I cannot hide it. I found a man who gives me true love and it is more than it seems. We will get married at the earliest opportunity; the ceremonies will come after. I love you, Brian. Here’s to you.

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Thought Picnic: In praise of high heeled jinks

And I cried

I am not a great fan of reality television and the rapid descent from the real celebration of talent to just feeding our innate voyeuristic proclivities has made this type of entertainment the staple of mass broadcasting.

However, every once in a while, these talent shows, one of which is Britain’s Got Talent does reveal a piece of common coal about to metamorphose into a glittering diamond.

Usually, someone sends me a link to a YouTube video and as I watch, tears come to my eyes as amazingly raw talent without any polishing is revealed in a gift to humankind that we can only appreciate and celebrate.

Even watching Paul Potts [YouTube, he won in 2007] or Susan Boyle [YouTube, she came second in 2009] today still fills me with emotion, as you see the yearning to be recognised and acknowledged earnestly demonstrated, time and again, your faith in humanity is renewed. The very best are usually not the pushy, notorious, gregarious or extrovert ones.

Men doing girlie better

Yesterday, I got to see one of those gems of talent, some French guys came to England, Yanis Marshall, Arnaud and Mehdi, Yanis being the lead dancer and choreographer, they join the ranks of men who would supposedly beat the other gender at what they are supposed to be good at.

As I was busy getting over the spectre of Conchita Wurst [YouTube] who won the Eurovision Singing Contest 2014, bearded with a body any woman would die for, the voice of an angel and the dress … it just takes your breath away, these men were dancing in high heels, I would wager that they would beat Beyonce in any dancing matchup.

Having seen Beyonce dance in high heels and wondered out loud how anyone could do that, these guys have perfected the art to the point that Yanis Marshall gives choreography lessons around Europe.

After watching their performance on YouTube, I did not cry but I might be off to a cobbler to get me a pair of high heeled shoes. This was not drag, this was cheeky and camp elegance with a touch of professionalism – this has taken them into the final.

I wish them good luck, besides, I guess everyone secretly wants to dance in high heels like that. Enjoy their first performance and how they got to the final.

#StellaGate: Do The Needful song

A princess in princely disaster

Therefore, the Nigeria Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, appeared before the House of Representatives committee on Aviation, to answer for overpriced bullet-proof BMW limousines presumably bought in her name.

With the air disaster, the near miss and suspension of airline operator licences that made October 2013 arguably the worst month of her tenure, the crisis of confidence was compounded with the purchase of unnecessary vehicles by a cash-strapped independent agency under her ministry.

See the following:

Nigeria: Acts of God in our Aviation Industry or Rank Incompetence?

Nigeria: Every reason to believe our airspace is not safe

Do the needful

After numberless claims and counterclaims from many government agencies with none of the at least five stories lining up, she appeared and said whilst she approved the transaction, she annotated the approval with, “Approved. Do the needful.”

‘Do the needful’ might well become a meme, but ‘Do the needful’ could mean anything from doing due diligence to exculpating oneself from responsibility if the whole issue blows up as it has done overshadowing the President's jamboree, pardon me, pilgrimage and visit to Israel, last week.

Let’s sing, let’s dance

However, rather that attempt to add another story to #StellaGate or #OduahGate with the aim of creating a Nigerian version of Arabian Nights and a story for bedtime, I have decided, ‘Do the Needful’ should be a song and dance, maybe a musical.

I am not a lyricist, but I have the framework of what can be refined and set to music, then we need a choreographer to help with the dance steps to go with the music.

Here is the draft ‘Do the Needful’ theme song:

Do the Needful,
I signed for the vehicle,
Make the claim,
But never in my name.

Do the Needful,
Stop the ridicule,
The BMW,
Is for me, not for you.

Do the Needful,
Take me for a fool,
A bulletproof price,
Is like rolling the dice.

Do the Needful,
The princess is beautiful,
Her life is in danger,
From some stranger.

Kwakoe - A multicultural festival in Amsterdam

A multicultural festival in Amsterdam

I first heard of it last year and that is because I have friends who really live in Amsterdam and have their fingers on the pulse of happenings in Amsterdam.

I live in Amsterdam but it is really not my city, I do not know what is happening in my city except when it appears in the water under my window, the gets on the international news usually as a past event or the Economist covers it as a long term exhibition.

Kwakoe [1] is a multicultural festival of the ethnic minorities from Africa, the Caribbean, the old Dutch colonies of Surinam and the Antilles and many other places where there is a kindred spirit of familiarity with minorities.

In fact, it started as a Surinamese festival in 1975, though it is no more so evidently so, there are strong influences everywhere.

Football, food, music and dance

I did not visit the Kwakoe Festival last year, but this year, I decided I would try and find out what it was all about. This yearly festival takes 6 consecutive weekends of July and August, this being the last weekend of activities.

I had arranged with a friend to visit the festival, me thinking it was not a daytime thing than a late afternoon to night time event, we drove up to a nearby station and then took an illegal cab called “snorder” to the festival sited at Bijmerpark in the notorious but mostly gentrified Amsterdam South East.

These festivals revolve around four main themes of football, food, music and dance, there was a lot of all of this, stalls with sellers and patrons catching up with nostalgia or experimenting with unfamiliar meals – a whole field of cows might have been corralled for the barbecues.

Where are the sponsors?

There were no expected sponsors for a demographic that spans more than half the globe, it was the usual transactional partners of mobile phone calling cards and services, money remittance services and the church.

For all the drink we consume, there was no Heineken nor Coca Cola, no blue chip companies nor banks, there were such humongous speakers but no Philips and for all the trainers we wear no Nike, Adidas, sportswear firm, fashion outlet or whatever else of note.

Basically, we are demographic well represented in those high street shops buying those things but not one to be considered for free sponsorship – it is probably indicative of how the “community” has not matured into a pressure group with clout that demands to be noticed, respected and catered to.

This also meant the setting was completely cash-based, no mobile cash dispensers or card reading facilities for electronic payments.

Tribes, clans and nations

Walking around the park, the layout on paper belies the fact that most stalls were not prefabricated spaces but slum-like hutches all seemingly held up solidly but could be blown over if the fox really had a good huff at it.

The place was alive, people made do with what they have and showed up to celebrated, the crowd was global in representation and decibels banged on decibels for the variety of music at play.

There were flags above stalls all around the place, the Surinam flag fluttered in the wind in many places, just as the Ghanaian, the Jamaican, the Zairean and even the Nigerian, in five different places.

Much as the festival was multicultural, the stall holders did not come as nations, they came as tribes and clans, Northern Niger was not represented, the Western Nigerians gave a Yoruba feel to their setup and there were two distinct clans from Eastern Nigeria.

All characters came out to play as the sun went down, the eccentric, the embarrassing, the entertaining and the nuisance, the funny and the downright outrageous; there was scope for much and a good police presence for a sense of safety and security.

Within these communities, I could not help but notice the powerful women who controlled the business in the stalls, where many of the male hands took their marching orders off the ladies, they, commendably are the backbone of many of these ethnic minority settings.

Settling down to the vibe

On a second loiter round the grounds there was a football tournament going on and for a split second I thought it was women’s soccer until I realised the chests were telling me something different from the amount of long braided hair on display, that is the way many men look nowadays, hours and hours at the hairdressers doing their hair. Phew!

We had food at the Zaire stand which belonged to an acquaintance of my friend’s lady, spicy spare ribs, fried plantain, fried rice and lots of salad – it was quite filling.

We then returned to the big Nigerian gathering where I was not too sure that the music was that representative apart from the fact that Nigerians were the performers, the language at times was parental advisory rather than just advisory and we were regaled with the provocative dancing of a rather well dressed lady of a certain age.

Everyone was doing what that dear Motown dance coach warned performers not to do, wiggling backsides in jerking motions that could call for radical hip replacement surgery, I was not ready to do my back in as I nodded my head at times and shook my shoulders a bit, the fanfare was exhilarating.

There would be Kwakoe again

The damning part for me was that in 9 years of living in Amsterdam my not being an ethnic minority community person meant I literally knew none of the people out there, whether that is a good or bad thing – well who knows?

I think I would do Kwakoe again, we left when it seemed the party was about to start and that was just gone 8 o’ clock, my friends insisted in getting me back home, it was a beautiful setting and wonderful evening of taste, colour and noise.

Sources

[1] Kwakoe Summer Festival - I amsterdam

Kwakoe Festival 2009 The official site in Dutch

Who are the Yoruba?

Dinner with new friends

I have questions, many questions and wonder where this would lead to. On the day of our arrival, there was a couple on the table beside ours who appeared very friendly that we had a few pleasant exchanges.

Then, the second night at dinner we were invited to a themed evening featuring Brazilian cuisine and we all obliged at which point I asked if we could share a table and they found that quite agreeable.

We met up just at the appointed time after I had a slight bathroom mishap which had just under 1 centimetre squared of skin scraped off my scalp in the process of balding my head.

Blood but no guts, a bit of alcohol and I was close to cresting a banshee octave, well, not really, but it was quite a burning sensation and then it clotted and I was fine.

Dancing with anthropology

So, both professors, one in anthropology and the other with a speciality in dance and interpretation covering classical, contemporary and Spanish dance. However, the most important part of this was the Cuban heritage which had obvious affiliation to the great dance diva Alicia Alonso.

The incredible linkage between dance and anthropology comes down to a more intriguing history of the Cubans and the dominance of Yoruba types and traditions which apparently are more advanced in Cuba than in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. However, a good deal of Yoruba culture is expressed in dance and music, but there is a whole area of academic study of crucial importance we native Yorubas need to explore.

These two men were quite versed in Yoruba history and mythology and more so exposed certain aspects of my ignorance of the culture of my forebears because of the way re-education and Western religious diktat have subsumed what essentially is our identity.

The dominance of the Yoruba

It would appear whilst lots of slaves were taken from the Slave Coast which was once the name of Southern Nigeria, that was not the only place where slaves were acquired, but when they arrived in the lands of bondage, the Yoruba culture and norms became the dominant expression for most slaves where in Cuba it was the least adulterated as opposed to the amalgam in Salvador de Bahia because of the suppression of cultures and traditions of the slaves in Brazil and the American South.

The Yoruba dialect spoken in Cuba is known as Lukumi which derives of Oluku mi, which finds equivalent meaning from the Ijebu dialect of Yoruba meaning “My friend” – See Church of the Lukumi.

The Yoruba identity

Now, there is no way we can talk of the Greek civilisation without strong allusions to their mythology, similarly, it would appear the whole essence of the Yoruba beyond just the language is expressed in our mythologies which feature more strongly in the Yoruba Diaspora which descends from the slaves than in the indigenous tribes back home, this is commonly known as Santeria (Cuba), Oyotunji (USA) or Candomblé (Brazil).

The Yoruba are essentially a very religious if not very spiritual people but the unrelenting encroachment of a brand of Christianity and modernism that subsumes our core identity into a non-descript amalgam of Judeo-Western interpretations which leaves us with just the language but no representative tradition and compellingly vibrant history is worrisome.

All probably is not lost because simplistically we do use Olorun (Ruler of heaven) or Olodumare in synonymy with the Supreme God, but we need to relate more of our understanding of our culture to our adopted religions, we cannot become a listless people or all that defines us would be lost.

Giving up ours for others?

Now, I am not saying Christianity is to blame for this, but if our culture by certain Christian or other religious teachings is supposedly inherently evil because the underpinning mythologies relate to gods called orishas what have we left of our customs after we leave the church, the mosque or some religious place of worship?

I am no expert in these matters, but I worry about these generalisations - the American brand of Christianity that promotes materialism, the African brand that expands on this materialism with an enemy round every corner and the European brand which is too liberal for the comfort of many.

It is time to go back to the things that make us a people who have a history that predates when slave traders came to take our ancestors away to lands so far away but after hundreds of years, that self-same ideal of what is Yoruba has survived the onslaught of slavery, racism, modernisation and religion.

I think the core of what is Yoruba is worth fighting for regardless of any other foreign religious beliefs we might have acquired.

I cannot dance to this din

Canary Islands

Having chosen the height of the low-season to visit the Canary Islands for a 2-week holiday, one can be forgiven for having much to comment about in terms of entertainment and activity.

There is not doubt that this time is the most affordable to visit the Islands, it is also the time that many of the businesses chose to take a holiday because business is a trickle rather than a flood.

Basically, the high season is the winter months from about the second-half of September to just after Easter. The signs you see around Gran Canaria in particular are first in Spanish, then in German and sometimes in English.

In German, not because of what I first thought was a Nazi invasion of the 40´s but because the whole of geriatric Germany makes an Exodus to the warmer climes of the Tropics without necessarily being in Africa.

The Canary Islands of which there are 7 mainly is a part of Spain, comprising of 2 states.

The smart thing about the geriatric years is exemplified in a comment made by a septuagenarian from England who said; during the winter months you are either at home trying to keep warm or out here doing every good activity and being utterly youthful with bonhomie. I agree most entirely.

Keep the mix, give me the music

Back to the main topic, I visited a number of clubs or bars which might be pseudo-clubs in the centre of Playa del Ingles which is in the southern tip of Gran Canaria looking for some entertainment or rather music to dance to.

I come from an era when music was a performance created by people doing things with musical instruments rather then chips and electrons cruising through wires and cables to the loudspeaker.

I have found it very difficult to dance to the music I hear in these clubs, because of the following reasons

1. None of the music sounds like what you get from the original singles
2. Neither is the music like what you see on the videos on MTV or the Box, where the performers do their best in formation dancing to sell the music
3. The music or din as it were averages 120 beats per minute, you almost definitely have to be on some drug to find the rhythm with which to synchronise or synchopate

In fact the reason why the whole experience is so alien is because of the advent of something called mixing, the fusion of the original music or sound track with a series of monotonous percussion sounds to create dance music.

Unfortunate as this might seem, I can understand that anyone without African blood probably does not know how to take the rhythm of any sound or original beat to relate effectively with their body movements to create an image of poise and prowess in dancing.

Anything, that deviates from the the formality of ballet through ballroom dancing to the Latin American styles is almost alien to the youth of today, the freestyle they adopt might as well be amateur puppetry with 2 left feet.

However, I have found that the Mancunians for some reason do know how to pick up the rhythm in original music, there is no need to inform they through the 120 beat per minute deafening din excited by pills of ecstasy.

To my memory, only one piece of atrociously bad music has ever been improved upon by this sordid mixing ordeal, that is Cher’s Believe, every other mix I have heard has murdered, depreciated, maligned and jettisoned the quality expressed the artiste in the original output.

The music industry disconnect

The music industry is now caught in a schizophrenic grip of trying to maintain music sales and satisfying this dance music craze.

Whilst, dance music is the rave amongst most disc jockeys, it is really a skill that has moved from an art to a science, and poor science for that matter. A DJ needs a good ear and timing to splice one track into another.

With original sound tracks, that is a literally impossible for people who have no inkling of how music works, however, this is easy if the underlying 120 bpm thing is the medium, persistence of hearing caused by the pneumatic effect of speakers that could bring down the building from the vibration makes it easier to switch tracks without too much of a honed skill.

Though, it can be argued that you have to skilled in a non-skill to be an expert in that non-skill - my view entirely.

Now, do does the music industry expect to survive, if what I buy from the shops and listen to on the TV is corrupted beyond recognition when I go out to the clubs?

The beats I listen to at home which in my mind create the feeling that makes me want to dance, are all muffled out by this viral percussion which is supposed to be my cue to dance - I am at a loss at the logic.

Oh! For a club that just plays the music as it is and DJs who know how to splice the music and keep people on the dance floor. It is a dying or dead art.

Addendum: What is referred to as dance music in this blog is better known as EuroTrash, I can add no better definition to this situation. Euro meaning it is European and trash speaks for itself.