Nairobi nights: How times have changed!

By CIUGU MWAGIRU
Posted  Thursday, May 26 2011 at 18:00

In Summary

• In a blast of nostalgia and a frank update of the city’s partying, CIUGU MWAGIRU puts his finger on what happens when the capital blinks a sleepy eye

Time was when getting a dose of decent entertainment in Nairobi entailed playing truant from school and pitching up at city clubs for the popular Saturday afternoon ‘boogies’.

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Exhilarating and enlivened with strobe lights, the boogies offered fare that was served sizzling hot by the heart-throbs of the day, including such greats as Kelly Brown, Steele Beauttah and a burly guy named Kelly the Bushman.

Ah, but how the times have changed!

In today’s Nairobi, entertainment has become big business, with milliard entertainment spots spreading out in concentric circles from the city centre. Thanks to a probably exaggerated sense of insecurity, the latter is given a wide berth by many paranoids.

No such exaggerated concerns for the revellers of yesteryear, whose preferred venues were such places as the Hallians Club on Moi Avenue, Arcadia on Koinange Street and lesser joints like Club Camey, nestled somewhere near Jeevanjee Gardens.

As for the then more discerning revellers, there was always hot action at Robbie Armstrong’s Starlight Club up Valley Road.

Fashioned from a converted church, it was ironically located where Integrity House, the headquarters of the Kenya Anti-corruption Commission stands.

As it happened, the good old Robbie’s club did have a decent amount of integrity, and was certainly the place to be if you thought you had a modicum of class.

Most entertainment joints of the day had an arguably well-earned reputation for sleaze, however, and were generally crowded, raucous and smoke-filled affairs, not particularly palatable for the virtuous.

Consequently, the young and restless who made a beeline there had to ensure that their mums did not know exactly where they were.

The clubs were affordable, though, and were the sort of places where teenage boys learnt how to hold down their drinks, even as their sisters let their hair hang down with total abandon, while picking up a trick or two about how to avoid having babies while still in school.

No such cares for today’s sophisticated and fastidious new middle class, with its huge leisure budgets. For this set, the prime fun spots are conveniently located in easily accessible bustling suburbs, such as Westlands, Langata, Hurlingham and so on.

Loaded with dispensable income or misplaced priorities, the young-at-heart and hot-blooded members of this class are naturally hedonistic. In their exclusive playgrounds, it is a sin to be seen anywhere where a beer costs less than say Sh200, almost more than double what it would cost in less shiny joints.

Prepared to pay about the same amount for a glass of wine, these privileged revellers are not hoi polloi, definitely. For a modest meal at their haunts, expect to fork out Sh1,500 sir, and considerably more if you’re into such culinary delights as sea food.

Clearly, the regulars in these up-market joints are a select, privileged lot, the progeny of wealthy golf-playing mums and dads, members of the elite political, economic and social sets. For their pampered heirs, then, revelling is a priority, an almost daily necessity in their easy lives.

Stylish and nonchalant in the extreme, they’re spoilt for choice, and are ostentatious to a fault. They sport the latest designer wear, while flaunting everything they’ve got, including the chic, adoring and eager female company they hang around with.

Not surprisingly, they will not be seen dead driving machines that cost less than, say, a million shillings, and fitted with psychedelic lights and pricey music systems. You got to make heads turn, you know.

No such frills in the more marginal zones of the city. Still, on any given Friday evening – dubbed members’ day in these climes – throngs set out in search of respite from the nasty realities of city life.

Seized with a palpable frenzy to get to the nearest entertainment points, their numbers are probably greater than those of the worshippers who head for city churches on Sunday.

The pursuit of devil-may-care fun probably has something to do with the relentless demands of the tough economic times.

Ultimately, the entertainment industry provides the sorely needed refuge from the tedium, isolation and nagging solitude of city life. It also provides the opportunity for the individual to socialise and have a sense of belonging.

In Nairobi’s poorer neighbourhoods, momentary escape from claustrophobic homes is routine, as is serious boozing, regarded by many as the essential condition for survival in today’s world. Most revellers also go for the generous displays of raw flesh provided by succulent little things dressed to the bare minimum.

Forget pole dancing; today the enticing sisters tease male patrons out of their wits by vigorously and suggestively wriggling on their laps. While at it, the unabashed lasses come frightfully close to the real thing, which is surprisingly usually forthcoming at the well-publicised and seemingly innocuous rugby festivals along Ngong Road.

There, youthful female rugby fans are ten a penny, and are usually raring to shake what their mamas gave them. Any famished male is game, before, during and after the evening disco.

Naughty entertainment is also the stuff of the one-man band shows, where original lyrics are routinely twisted into extremely pornographic versions. For obvious reasons, not quite the sort of events you want to attend with your mother-in-law.

Ditto those ubiquitous karaoke events, where shrill-voiced girls relentlessly assault your eardrums, while imagining they’re the world’s next singing sensations.

No-go too are those dingy joints off Koinange Street where stomping wanna-be Bob Marleys turned out in dreadlocks and authentic Rasta colours to flaunt their stuff; where if you sniff the air hard enough you might just detect the ganja that fuels them.

For mum-in-law, theatre is still alive and kicking in Nairobi and probably the best option. Be careful though, lest you find yourself dragging her to watch The Vagina Monologues at some foreign cultural centre.

Instead, try the Carnivore Restaurant, where cultural evenings are staged practically on any weekend evening. Good, clean and rewarding cultural fare for her there. Only make sure you outfit her with appropriate ear plugs to douse the raucous din and shrill screams of ecstatic turned-on female revellers.