Who would have thought that despite all of the delicious connections and good intentions, the rain gods would have opened fire, handed us the first day of winter, and triggered a power outage across five blocks of U St? A power outage? No joke! For an hour we drummed and channeled our energies, til we remembered our city is one of Southern efficiency and Northern comfort, and realized the power was out for the night.
Crazy. And yet the atmosphere and tea-candle reserves of the Caverns could not have been better suited to combat the outage. Local artist Jolley D held it down on the drums. Guest got cozy or added their brush strokes to our cave art canvases. artBeat ladies regrouped to plot plan B.
The AfroBeat must go on. artBeat is grateful to Juliana Landim for trucking home to pick up the Guerilla Poet's battery-powered microphone and to Boho Caves for permitting the event to continue and running the bar by flashlight. And further thanks to performers Burnface, Lethy Denise, and, particularly, Wanluv, for accommodating the technical impossibilities and giving his all a cappella.
Wanluv's spinning tunic, in colors of his native Ghana, appeared perhaps more majestic by candle-light; and the crowd circled closer to catch the ironies replete in "Green Card," a song about the tribulations of immigrating to the US.
Thank you, also, to the progressive and beautiful crowd in attendance. Thank you for your patience and support. We hope to see you at future artBeat events and learn more about ways in which we can work together.
"No electricity is a drummer's dream." Jolley D.
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