The Afterparty, Reggae Night On The Beach!

It was clear during my going away party at the guesthouse that Idiboy had some catching up to do with his old mates. We had a plan to all head to off to Reggae night. I was ready to go, and had a friend that I was going to go visit and bring to the Sizzla. Normally, this hour of night he wouldn't think it safe for me to walk alone all the way to the beach (which was about a 30 minute walk or so). But he was so involved with hanging with his old mates catching up, that he told me I could go on ahead. It was fine with me, to me there was something special about walking alone there at night, alone with my own thoughts, and being free enough to make my own movements. It's something that makes you feel like a true Gambian, African. You want to be able to just soak up the atmosphere and be in harmony with everything around you. So I set out on my own for the beach and Reggae Night.

I walked to the main road, took a taxi to meet up with my friends group halfway to Fajura. Stopped by my friends house, we went to a low key resteraunt in Fajura for a couple minutes, and then it was off to the Sizzla for Reggae Night. There's no rush in getting there. It probably starts around 9 but most people don't arrive till midnight, then it runs deep into the night till around 3am in the morning.



This is at Bailey's for Reggae Night. For some reason they call it "The Sizzla". But Sizzla is actually a popular Reggae group in Jamaica so this causes confusion. When you come back home to America and meet people familiar with Reggae music or Gambia and you tell them while you were in Africa you went to Reggae night at the Sizzla they think you went to a Sizzla concert because along with many popular Reggae groups from Jamaica they actually travel to Gambia and perform at major concert events. Also, Sizzla is not the name of the place, it is Bailey's.

But anyway, I digress... Reggae night at the beach the biggest night for the Rasta boys in Gambia. They go crazy for these shows and know nearly all the words to the songs, very passionate about the music and lifestyle. The men outnumber the women there probably 4 to 1. I thought it was kind of interesting, because I remember when hip-hop in the 90's used to be dominated by a strictly male fanbase. Sure there were female fans, but the male fans dictated the direction of the record sales and culture. Then it seemed in the late 90's all the rap artists started to realize that females were buying more records then men. So artists started to care less about their craft, and the music making process, and more about their image as a sex symbol and simply making a catchy dance tune. To the point where now hip-hop in America is dead, or has become something alltogether different from what it was in the 80's and 90's.

I remember the DJ's name at the Reggae night was DJ Obama. This was the month when Obama had just won presidency and all of Africa was in celebration, as Obama's father is an African Muslim man from Kenya. There in Gambia, at the Reggae night, a popular song was a simple tune, who's chorus went,

"Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, OYYY OYY, OYYY OYYY".

Very simple, but in the Gambia the song blew up, because it came at the right time! In Africa it's a shared experience for events that happen. For example, in America when somebody like Michael Jackson dies, you can ride around in your car and listen to his songs, and most people will look at you funny. I mean, sure, people were watching Michael Jackson footage on TV, and listening to it in headphones, and talk and argue over whether he was good or bad on occasion. But there was no shared experience. In Gambia, on the other hand, in 07' when I was there when Lucky Dube died, if you drove around listening to his music, people might see you and put a hand over there heart, but definitely nobody would look at you strange. Wherever you'd go you'd hear his music outloud and people would talk about him with a shared passion and sympathy.






Here you can see how the cars just pull up on the sand close to the beach. Again, I apologize, my camera doesn't catch footage well at night. You can barely see me walk in front of the lights of the cars in my African clothes. Atleast I stand out for being white. There were a few tourists at Reggae Night here and there, mostly European and they seemed to enjoy themselves. The stage where the DJ plays the tune is maybe a couple hundred yards from the Atlantic Ocean, so everytime I go I never forget to go chill by the ocean, listen to the tunes, and catch the view of the moon laying a thousand diamonds across the ocean. Pure beauty. Perfect weather, climate, sounds.