Where They Meet
So, I was out in the club (a
pub really) and it was right around the time I came up with "The People In The Bar". Well it
was actually at the very same time. Both thoughts were running through my
imagination concurrently.
I stood there with one hand on my friend's shoulder for balance cause I was jumping very excitedly, the reason was Sheck Wes's Mo Bamba had just come on so naturally, it was time to rage or at the very least make it very apparent that I really enjoyed having this song play anytime I am out with my friends. So here I am singing, shouting along to this song, head tilted up to the ceiling and my eyes squinted slightly because I had a slight buzz going.
My mouth kept shouting and my legs kept jumping but my mind wondered very briefly, I was looking at this antique pressed ceiling and how it looked very similar to the one I had in my childhood home. I thought about how old the building must have been, how long it's been a bar, and how different it must have been during Apartheid. All history in this country is linked to apartheid in one way or another. If you look far back enough you would inevitably get to a period when the Apartheid government was in fact in power.
Yes, I had all these thoughts plus the aforementioned concurrent train of thought all while screaming very loudly "I GOT HOES, CALLING A YOUNG NIGGA PHONE" but eventually I turned my gaze away from the beautiful patterns on the pressed tin plate ceiling onto the crowd of "youths" singing and chanting the song along with me, I opened my eyes a little wider for a better view of everything. I took it all in for a moment then continued to ”WHERE’S ALI WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING DOUGH".
At this point my excitement was reaching its peak and I needed my friend (Giovannie) to know just how excited I was to hear this song play whilst him and I were together on the dance floor. So, I grabbed him by the arm and shook him all while shouting "GIO!!". Irrelevant information but I'm setting a scene. The song essentially gets to it's climax when the beat abruptly stops and Sheck says the words "FUCK, SHIT, BITCH!" all with slight pauses in between.
The girl standing next to me must have seen my very apparent excitement. Unbeknownst to her my previously mentioned "slight buzz" had at that point expanded into a 7.5 on the Richter so I was certainly out of it at this point. She must have just assumed I was just that excited or that this was somehow a lifestyle I was familiar to. She tapped me and then looked at the small crowd of people bobbing and dancing, she had a look on her face that insinuated that she wanted to try something or that she saw something she wanted to fix, she then said to me "Let's start a mosh pit" I was shocked but very amused too, I took it in passing and laughed it off. She saw I wasn't about to help and went back to dancing, but the experience got me thinking (Which thanks to my 7.5, I had been doing nonstop for the entirety of the night).
I thought about places people have gone to participate in little human rituals that are as old as humans are, being the social creatures we are, it makes absolute sense that there are places and times that we've gathered to be in the presence of other humans and essentially zone out, get lost in the euphoria and excitement. Bars, pubs, and nightclubs are an example of such places, but it just hit me that even Churches and places of worship offer the same intoxication and inexplicable euphoria. The difference being the churches would attribute this feeling to the Holy Spirit and other places would therefore be delegated to the other guy with horns.
It's not to say that every single time one is in these places that the feeling will take a hold of you but enough of us have felt it to confirm its existence.
A dim and enclosed space with loud music, dancing, cheering, lights, and intoxicated people (on drugs, alcohol or just some kind of natural euphoria) sounds like a cave with a fire, shadows on the walls, loud chanting, singing, and screaming to substitute modern music with dancing and ululating. You can almost picture all the time's people in the past have done similar or almost identical things. Strong emotions and an experience that you feel so strongly from inside you because you are present and connected to your surroundings, and the people around you, the opposite of an out-of-body experience.
I stood there with one hand on my friend's shoulder for balance cause I was jumping very excitedly, the reason was Sheck Wes's Mo Bamba had just come on so naturally, it was time to rage or at the very least make it very apparent that I really enjoyed having this song play anytime I am out with my friends. So here I am singing, shouting along to this song, head tilted up to the ceiling and my eyes squinted slightly because I had a slight buzz going.
My mouth kept shouting and my legs kept jumping but my mind wondered very briefly, I was looking at this antique pressed ceiling and how it looked very similar to the one I had in my childhood home. I thought about how old the building must have been, how long it's been a bar, and how different it must have been during Apartheid. All history in this country is linked to apartheid in one way or another. If you look far back enough you would inevitably get to a period when the Apartheid government was in fact in power.
Yes, I had all these thoughts plus the aforementioned concurrent train of thought all while screaming very loudly "I GOT HOES, CALLING A YOUNG NIGGA PHONE" but eventually I turned my gaze away from the beautiful patterns on the pressed tin plate ceiling onto the crowd of "youths" singing and chanting the song along with me, I opened my eyes a little wider for a better view of everything. I took it all in for a moment then continued to ”WHERE’S ALI WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING DOUGH".
At this point my excitement was reaching its peak and I needed my friend (Giovannie) to know just how excited I was to hear this song play whilst him and I were together on the dance floor. So, I grabbed him by the arm and shook him all while shouting "GIO!!". Irrelevant information but I'm setting a scene. The song essentially gets to it's climax when the beat abruptly stops and Sheck says the words "FUCK, SHIT, BITCH!" all with slight pauses in between.
The girl standing next to me must have seen my very apparent excitement. Unbeknownst to her my previously mentioned "slight buzz" had at that point expanded into a 7.5 on the Richter so I was certainly out of it at this point. She must have just assumed I was just that excited or that this was somehow a lifestyle I was familiar to. She tapped me and then looked at the small crowd of people bobbing and dancing, she had a look on her face that insinuated that she wanted to try something or that she saw something she wanted to fix, she then said to me "Let's start a mosh pit" I was shocked but very amused too, I took it in passing and laughed it off. She saw I wasn't about to help and went back to dancing, but the experience got me thinking (Which thanks to my 7.5, I had been doing nonstop for the entirety of the night).
I thought about places people have gone to participate in little human rituals that are as old as humans are, being the social creatures we are, it makes absolute sense that there are places and times that we've gathered to be in the presence of other humans and essentially zone out, get lost in the euphoria and excitement. Bars, pubs, and nightclubs are an example of such places, but it just hit me that even Churches and places of worship offer the same intoxication and inexplicable euphoria. The difference being the churches would attribute this feeling to the Holy Spirit and other places would therefore be delegated to the other guy with horns.
It's not to say that every single time one is in these places that the feeling will take a hold of you but enough of us have felt it to confirm its existence.
A dim and enclosed space with loud music, dancing, cheering, lights, and intoxicated people (on drugs, alcohol or just some kind of natural euphoria) sounds like a cave with a fire, shadows on the walls, loud chanting, singing, and screaming to substitute modern music with dancing and ululating. You can almost picture all the time's people in the past have done similar or almost identical things. Strong emotions and an experience that you feel so strongly from inside you because you are present and connected to your surroundings, and the people around you, the opposite of an out-of-body experience.
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