Practice ya moves…

Nothing special to do this week-end in the Big Apple, aight come party then, but you better come prepared lol. Get your Soukouss and Coupé-Décalé moves on lock, check out the videos below for inspiration. See y’all this Saturday @ LAVA GINA or The Shrine maybe ;-D.

Soukouss aka Lingala aka whatever you wanna call it.

Coupé-Décalé aka…man I don’t know, there’s so many variations out there lol.

Big City Blues

It’s funny how things go down isn’t it? You’d been longing to come to the States so badly, to the point of resenting everything about Africa. You know, “man this place is hopeless”, “this place is not safe”, “there’s no future here” and the list of complaints goes on. But once you did get out and you were in the comfort of your parents’ brownstone (ok, more like a 10×10 studio apt, who are you kidding?) you started realizing how much you missed the little things you always took for granted. I’m sure you’ve heard of how people in the big city are colder than back home (wherever that is), that’s right nobody gives a shit in New York lol! I’ve seen a couple of times dudes get beat up in broad day light with by passers minding their biz, the second time (silly argument that escalated between a white and a black dude on the ‘A’ train) I felt compelled to intervene and stop a homicide that was about to take place in front of about 50 witnesses! In any case, let’s get back to my point about the things you start missing once you left the continent.
In my case, it was – interestingly enough – the music that I missed most. Congolese music (soukouss, rumba etc.) never particularly tickled my fancy until that point, as I was more concerned with knowing the identity of the 5 mics recipient in the next issue of The Source magazine. Well, for some reason I started buying soukouss CDs and DVDs (still courtesy of my bootleg agent in Harlem:-D), I even went with my girlfriend to a Koffi Olomide concert in 2001 for Christ sake lol. I started realizing that I was now into things that had never caught my attention when I was still in Africa and that I secretly loved I suppose. Today I might go out to Webster Hall, Jay-Z’s 40/40 etc. but my first choice would always be an African venue, be it a restaurant or a club. I mean damn, don’t you just love them African parties!!!!? ;-D