Dbanj's after concert party on Monday the 31st of August at a
posh night club called RSLOUNGE in South Woodford in Essex,
United Kingdom (probably one of the few American styled night
clubs in London) was very widely attended. People started queuing
up at around 12:00 midnight and within an hour there were over
600 people waiting to get into the night club and party with the
KOKO MASTER. The management of the night club
were overwhelmed by the number of young people waiting to get
into the club and were asking the question WHO IS D'BANJ?
The crowd was a mixture of pretty, classy young Africans, Afro
Caribbean’s, a few English and Italians etc all dressed to kill
and from the music blasting from the numerous cars parked
outside, ready to party.
Unfortunately both the club management to include security
personnel and the promoters were unprepared for the number of
people who wanted to party with Dbanj. The promoters out of greed
decided to introduce a two tier gate fee system, 30 and 50
pounds. For a VIP table which on normal nights were charged out
at 500.00 pounds was now costing 600 and 1000 pounds
respectively. To ensure that they clearly milked the tier system,
people were left queuing outside for over two hours whilst the
first class citizens who were paying up 1000 pounds for the
privilege of partying with Dbanj were let in first.
Clearly Dbanj is one of the most talented entertainers in Africa
in our time and it is not surprising that the African la crème de
la crème in the UK were out in on mass to party with him.
At one point the crowd had enough of waiting and started trying
to push their way into the club with only a handful of bouncers
or security staff on hand (as the Club management clearly
underestimated Dbanj's popularity after all he is African) and
the whole thing started turning into a riot, the Police had to be
called out.
Dbanj and his entourage drove past the night club took one look
at the situation and decided that it was not worth attending as
they would have clearly been at risk and rightly so.
So by 3 O’clock in the morning the situation was as follows; over
600 to 700 people trying to force their way into the Club,
confirmation that Dbanj was no longer attending, latest
Dbanj’s and Wande songs
blaring from the different cars parked in the car park and the
club management wondering what they had taken on.
Overall I think from the pictures below you can clearly see that
people tried to enjoy themselves without Dbanj in attendance, the
promoters and club management were the big winners on the night
as they clearly made a lot of money.
The two lessons I believe should have been learnt are as
follows;
1)
As African entertainment gets even more sophisticated
and attracting even more talented individuals both in the west and
in Africa; musicians, actors, models, comedians etc are now
beginning to compete with their black American counterparts and
should be afforded the same type of treatment or close.
African entertainers have come a long way and are probably more
admired by Africans in Diaspora who don’t get to see enough of
them. Any time there is such an event the
organisers should be prepared for the kind of crowd that may show
up.
2) There is clearly a huge appetite possibly out of nostalgia for
African type entertainment or entertainers, which will explain
the numbers that turned out for this after concert party, but
one, will hope that promoters and organisers of such events will
not take advantage of the situation and be fair.
We live in a different society from Nigeria or other African
countries and it would have been best to let people into the club
on a first come first serve basis, instead of instituting a class
system that ended up almost ruining what could have been one of
the greatest after concert parties held in honour of an African
Musician in the UK in more recent times and we could have all got
the chance to party with Dbanj.
Sylvia Tansali - August 31st 2009
