Once upon a late spring's eve, I befriended a phenomenal deejay who goes by the name of DJ Reborn of the much lauded and Village Voice featured Ubiquita collective. When I found out she was spinning again in a neighborhood not too far from my own in Brooklyn, I resolved instantly that I should go. As the date drew nearer, I was receiving more and more information on the event. It would be at Southpaw in Park Slope. It was a co-production between Ubiquita and U People to kick off Pride month in June. It would be a fundraising event for the U People Documentary, a film shot during the filming of Hanifah 
Walidah's "Make A Move" music video featuring a Brooklyn brownstone filled with 30 women of color - straight, gay, and trans -discussing what it means to be Black and LGBT in America today. You can order the DVD directly from the U People website. (and while you're at it, get on the mailing list because Hanifah and Olive know how to throw a party!) It would be $20 to get in. Featured artists performing would be Shelley Nicole's Blakbushe, Hanifah Walidah featuring Helen Foulard of Les Nubians, and (wait
for it....) Staceyann Chin. Let me say that again in case you missed it: STACEYANN CHIN!!!! Staceyann Chin, world renown poet and spoken word artist. Staceyann Chin of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam fame. Staceyann Muthaf*cking Chin. So, as you might imagine, I was even more excited about the event. 
The event listing said that it started at 7pm. Now, I wasn't sure if that was 7pm Real World time or 7pm CP time, so I decided to head over from work straightaway (I didn't want to take the chance that Staceyann's busy schedule would have her performing first at a punctual event and I might miss it because I wanted to go home and get even cuter...so i just went with my usual cute...and my camera). In my rush to get to the show on time, 
I mistakenly forgot my camera battery in the charger at my jobby-job. Thankfully, I realised this before I got on the train and raced back to pick it up before it was too late. Then I dashed back to the subway and headed to Park Slope. The friend that was meeting me had already arrived, but the venue was not quite up and grooving yet (CP time after all), so we went to grab something to eat. I don't want to name names and blacken the reputation of any 
Park Slope eateries, but the place my friend chose had the slowest service this side of purgatory! And though I love her to pieces, my girl was taking waaaaay too long to eat something that had already taken waaaaay too long to arrive at the table; and I'm like a five-year-old in a bank line with my mum once my attention span stops working. So after over an hour, I had to excuse myself from the table and agree to meet her back at Southpaw when she was finished. I got back to the spot and it looked like things were starting to jump off. A good-size and good looking crowd had begun to form and there were some sounds pumping through the speakers. I scoped out my
surroundings with my camera, taking a few test shots here and there to check the lighting, etc. Then I sidled up to the bar and ordered my drink (Shirley Temple. Very red. Four cherries.). Not long after, my friend re-arrived and we took a seat in a little elevated, comfy lounge area to take in the ambiance and feel the vibe of the evening. Now, when I first got there, like I said, Southpaw wasn't really much to look at. A cavernous event space with dim lighting, a dusty floor, a red-lit bar, and a naked performance stage. But by this time, the place was getting pretty packed, and it really did look like a good time about to go off. It never ceases to amaze me how the energy of the people in a space can be so transformative to the space itself.
Southpaw was lookin' kinda cute! The first act to take the stage (after a spirited introduction from Ubiquita event coordinator Kim Knox) was Shelley Nicole's Blakbusche. Funk. And then some more funk. Funk like I wanted my Uncle John to come back from the other side just to watch this show with me because I'm not sure if anyone else I know could fully understand this funk. Shelley Nicole killed it. It was soul. It was funk. It was rock and roll. It was some love in your ear is what it was. A good time was had by all. Not a single ass was left unshaken when she departed the stage. 
Next to take the stage was - DA da da DAAAAHHH - Staceyann Chin! She got up and just started talking sh*t with the audience. A little back and forth about her hope to score a booty call out of tonight's engagement (as it was very low-key and the opening of pride month). She listed some pretty stiff criteria for anyone taking on this challenge. No abbreviated text messaging (wut r u up 2? call me l8r!), and please respect the rules of capitalisation and punctuation. And I can't stress this enough: Grammar. Grammar. Grammar. In short: Spelling, right. 
Grammar, tight. Staceyann is a force! She's tall and lithe, and takes up every inch of the stage with her presence. At every rise and fall of her voice, every facial expression, every mimed action, she illustrated her words with her body and took the audience along with her on the journey. Even as she stuttered out the last few lines of her last piece and gracefully demurred and bowed out from the stage, the crowd was cheering her on and begging her to continue just a little more...She certainly left them all wanting and waiting to see what she'll come up with next. Last get up and give it to the crowd was Hanifah Walidah (Miss U People herself!). Her set, from top to bottom was not just soulful, but full of spunk and humor. Miss Walidah is most definitely an all around performer. She sang her little face off, and also managed to make time to joke with the back up singers and 
introduce the world to some incredible musicians as well. On bass was Ganessa James (who also played bass with Shelley Nicole earlier in the evening). This girl is so much fun to watch hiding out in the background! As a bass player, she is pretty much designed to be low-key and in the background, but if you can peak over and around the edge of
Hanifah's personality to catch Ganessa in the back, you can see that she is sincerely having the time of her life, slapping out basslines and dancing with her eyes closed. On guitar was a young lady that Hanifah found on MySpace (thank heaven for the internet, right?), Michelle Williams. This sista's skills were completely off the chain! Seriously, she is making me re-think my long-held belief that the bass player is, without fail, always the coolest person in the band. She switched between three different guitars. The last one was some kind of creature I'd never even seen before. It had a double-wide fret and ten or twelve strings and an odd shaped body. I 
don't know what it was called, but Michelle played the hell outta that thing! The live performances were followed by the ladies of Ubiquita (DeeJays Reborn, Moni, Selly, and SheRock) on the turntables to keep the party going. Up first was DJ Reborn making it do what it do with her own special blend of old school funk and soul mixed with contemporary hip hop and r&b. Next up was SheRock, and this is definitely not a misnomer. SheRock the ones and twos like nobody's business! Kept my body rockin'...Unfortunately, my jobby-job does not involve staying up all night in 
Brooklyn hot spots and shakin' ass (though I often wish it were...*sigh*), so I had to cut out before Moni and Selly took to the tables. Life is so unfair...Until next time my lovelies!Check out Hanifah Walidah's music video for her song, 'Make A Move':
Video courtesy of souloperator on youtube
