July 26th - Queens Restaurant and Night Club

I didn't go out Saturday night. I went out Sunday morning. It seems like it would be the kind of thing I'm used to what with having lived in two 24 hour cities prior to my arrival in Atlanta but NO! Following a very pleasant Saturday, I came home at about 9:00pm, went to bed and was jarred awake at 1:30am to go out to a spot by the name of Queens Restaurant and Night Club all the way the hell out in Norcross. We ventured out of the house at about 3:00am afraid that the club may have already been shut down and raided by police. My God. Nevertheless, we arrived at about half past and people were still streaming into the entrance which is crazy. The club officially opens at 9:00pm. Folks don't start showing up until about 2:00am. To those who are unaware of such a phenomenon, it is commonly referred to as Colored People's Time.. which is starting to make more and more sense to yours truly since we didn't invent this 24 hour madness and the concept of time is pretty much a seriously anal retentive human construct...

This was my first taste of an authentically African clubbing experience. I'd been to Jamaican spots before in New Orleans and Los Angeles but never African. It was cool. Really cool. Not pretentious at all. Just a gathering to dance, sweat, and get down to music with layered drum beats and choruses rather unintelligible to the English-speaking ear. When you gather a whole continent of people and descendants of the African Diaspora to dance, you really get a great cross section of languages and attire. Dating a Nigerian made it much easier to identify the various nations represented. I spotted folks from Ethiopia, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, as well as a few Congolese, Jamaicans, Ivorians and on and on and on. Many spoke French and various types of Patwa in addition to the adopted language of English. Those who had been colonized by the English wore suits, dresses and very upscale attire. Those who were colonized by the French tended to wear tighter pants and white belts for some reason.

Personally, I'm sure I could have passed for an immigrant but I've never felt so American. There may have been other non-immigrants there but I couldn't be sure. Having posted this blog, I hope that more natural born African-Americans would be curious about visiting a predominantly African club but who knows. It's amazing the discord and the stereotypes that exist between us even though any non-black person would look at us and just see a bunch of darkies. Maybe this isn't the platform to start discussing Pan-Africanism but dammit, to all African-Americans reading this, hit me up if you want to visit Queens. To all Africans reading this, invite an African-American friend and let's start building bridges here. We have much to learn from each other and much to share with the rest of America.

The DJ was rather terrible but I guess it is a hard job to try to appeal to so many varying musical tastes. The turntables produced a mutiny of trainwrecks forcing those on the dance floor to stop between songs to readjust their rhythm. We heard sounds from the continent as well as Caribbean, Latin and a few popular American songs like Boom Boom Pow...which caused most of the people to leave the dance floor. I can't remember the last time I heard a slow song played at a club but love music was mixed into the rotation to accommodate the various couples. Pretty sweet. When a Congolese tribal song came on, many of the folks there got really happy and formed a circle. What was so pleasing about watching was that it was the men who were dominating the dance floor instead of the women. OutPast30 Lady absolutely loves a dancing man and it is such a relief to finally love someone who enjoys and possesses the talent. I think what tickled me most was the huge disco ball and the smoke. I had an awesome time and managed to keep up. I realized I'm used to moving my feet and stepping to music but this particular club required copious amounts of hip movement in a sort of squatting position with feet planted firmly. I'm going to practice in the mirror and watch a little more YouTube before I go again.

We left the club just before sunrise listening to Bob Marley and singing at the top of our lungs. This was probably a tactic to stay awake come to think of it. And as the sun rose, there was a blood red hue in the sky that chased away the darkness of the night. I looked at my foreign dance partner and felt comfortably familiar.