I Ain’t Slapped A Bitch In Weeks!

“I Ain’t Slapped A Bitch In Weeks.”

Those were the lyrics being sung when I walked into the second dance room at the dance club Off_courso in Rotterdam. Rotterdam is about an hours drive from Amsterdam and I was the guest of DJ Dutchican/Niels and Miss Bunty AKA Maarielle.

I would like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of MYSPACE.COM. I knew I was going to Amsterdam and noticed that the profile: dutchican soulc lived in Amsterdam, so I approved his friend request and sent him an email teling him I would be in his hometown. He proceeded to invite me to write and record the lead vocals on a new track he was working on…!!! Why not I said! Never done that before. It should be fun.

Well, it turns out that one of his favorite friends is a Chicago vocalist named Andrea Love. I then contacted Andrea ( my soul sista and new BFF) and we ended up talking for over two hours on the phone. I in turn hired her to join me and the Shivers on a corporate gig when I returned home. She also happens to be an experienced House Music /diva (she has had a couple of big hits on the dance charts) who had sent a vocal track to Niels for another track he was working on. Kismet!

But let’s get back to Off_courso. It was Sunday night and the joint was packed!! Folks dancing everywhere and I mean everywhere: on the stairs, on the stage, on the sidelines. Only the ceiling was clear.

The main dance floor was a cavernous room with a huge killer sound system. It got really hot in there and mama’s makeup was melting down to my knees, so I moved into another room where they were playing Hip Hop, straight up pop and R & B dance cuts. That’s where I heard (as I entered) “I AIN’T SLAPPED A BITCH IN WEEKS!” Y’all know I was loving that shit!! “GOTTA A TWENTY-DOLLAR BILL PUT YO HANDS UP!! SINGLE LADIES…” Whew HOO! (shout out to my girl Babs!)
There was no posing at Off_courso. Folks was sweatin’ and jamming!!!

Big difference between a club in Chi-town & the Netherlands.
1. Folks dancing on the stairs!! And no security (Brute squad moving ’em out) trippin’.

2. No fights, and a totally mixed crowd: racially, and sexually – lots of gay boys and girls. And it was a huge love fest.
3. Broken glass everywhere. I swear it looked like folks finished there drinks and then just threw the empty glasses in the corner. I wondered if this was unusual, but I noticed that afterwards the clean-up crew used a giant floor squeegee to push the broken glass aside and they weren’t cussing, so I think this was just the norm. Go figure.

The Occasion: Theme night: Sonya Bakker: the new Netherlands diet guru who has written a book for dieting by eating the normal Dutch foods and not some salad/starvation fare. It’s a phenom over there. So there were a group of queens in fat suits wandering around the stage. It was nuts!

Miss Bunty informed me that she was just doing some “freestyle singing with the DJ” This translated to her holding court on stage (with about two dozen other folks) vocalizing and calling out shit like an emcee: “Work it,” qnd “move yo ass!” She really got the party going and what a voice!! That girl had more soul than a pot o’ greens on my grand mama’s stove in Georgia. Ya’ feel me?

Luckily, I had my camera and was shooting away trying to capture the motion and energy. Enjoy!! It was a great scene!