Nightlife and the formed family

Kasa’s “2ACTIVE” and how our friendship sets me free

The sultry crimson radiance that beams up the edges of AMPM is unforgettable. The club’s booths wrap the room, and the flickering signage above the bar transmits a faint glow that inscribes halos of light around the beautiful bottle servers’ enchanting faces. To me, there are several ineluctable truths in this life: the sky is blue, taxes will need to be paid, and Sunday nights at AMPM are guaranteed to lift my spirits in a way that other nightlife experiences in Toronto can only dream of. My friend Kasa promotes at AMPM, among other locations in the city, and the authentic passion that drives his work renders the term ‘promoting’ reductive. The boom of patronage at AMPM is largely, if not wholly, a credit to him. When I first met him a year and a half ago, he DJ’d in smaller settings and would always invite me and our other close friends to come support him, often at no expense, for the simple fact that he enjoyed being around his people when he worked. Kasa is an imperturbable and contagiously positive person who feels that his success and work are an extension of his friendships and an act of community building. Sunday afternoon is when it truly begins; my phone will buzz repetitively as he calls, I answer, and his hopeful, jovial interruption to my barely uttered “Hey—” is, assuredly, “What are you doing tonight?”

Much to my chagrin, many weekends pass where the barrage of my life science workload is diametrically at odds with the enticements of my social world.

“Come on, you have to take a break sometime!” I mull it over, I envision what I could possibly wear, and within ten seconds I decide, “Sure, I’ll come.”

Once I have organised my group of friends, we pile into an Uber and plead with inebriated, unstifled giggles for an AUX cord or Bluetooth pairing code as we blissfully ride the Don Valley Parkway towards Queen Street West. My worries and deadlines ebb from memory as we ride further from home; I am not a new person now, but rather one with a vacillating duality. My interests in human biology do not disappear when I am out, but rather, they change form. I become laughably conscious of my heartbeat and the feeling of my dress on my body; my skin’s mechanoreceptors are telling me to never wear this itchy crap again.

Upon arrival, my bag is searched, my wrist is quickly stamped, and I am pulled by the wrist into the collapsing vortex of people that have filled the club to the brim and up the walls. My eyes are peeled for Kasa; in the flurry of a newborn night, he is hard to catch and to greet as he runs from one end to the other to ensure that everyone can get in and that everything is running smoothly.

When he sees me and my friends, I can see him visibly relax. He takes his job seriously and endeavours to promote in a profitable way, but at his core, he is always just glad to see his friends. He reaches out a hand that I can scarcely see but can grasp, and he gingerly pulls us in one by one over heeled feet and the glassware of the booth table.

If old friends are there, all the better. We are surrounded by profoundly talented creatives that see Toronto through a unique lens, as still young and full of promise: humble models, singers, photographers, and actors that do not quite fit in where others do—perhaps they fit above. In our mismatch of artists, UofT students, baristas, and financial advisors by day, we form a cohesive group in Kasa’s booth. We mingle in the bathroom, pick up on old gossip where we left off, take pictures, and laugh together. We recognise each other. They ask me, “How’s school?” and I moan dramatically, to which I am comforted with a sympathetic and surprisingly effective, “You can do it, girl.” Our differences don't matter and are scarcely noticed. What matters is who will sing or rap the next track bar-for-bar, because, inevitably, someone will.

The music at AMPM is largely what makes the club a sort of cultural capsule, one that microcosmically enshrines the multiculturalism of Toronto. The throwbacks cultivate an air of nostalgia that pulls us further away from the contemporary “real world,” often innervated and intermixed with house music underlays that celebrate the beloved genre that originated in Chicago. Caribbean music and Afro-Beats are consistent club favourites, and they recapitulate the celebration of Black culture that is nightlife culture. To deny the influence of Black artists, DJs and promoters in Toronto is to deny the influence of Blackness on popular music and the entertainment industry, which is clear even to the untrained eye.

The neon overhead lights that alternate from blue to red are emblematic of police sirens. Here they are not panic or anxiety-inducing, rather, they are something to be mocked as our dancing constitutes resistance. The fallacious stereotypes of our delinquency do not exist here. The insidious artefacts of racism and misogyny have little influence. They often collude and conspire to compel women and minorities to believe that there is a certain ‘acceptable’ comportment, and any deviation from that is a misdeed. I often wondered if I could truly be a serious and devoted student if I ever indulged in Toronto nightlife, but I also wondered if missing out on Toronto nightlife would take away an outlet for me. In my labs and lectures, there are few students who look like me and who are able to see past the meticulously curated, distinct image of me as a ‘good’ student. As a Black woman who shape-shifts and code-switches, I strongly identify with the challenge of maintaining your personhood through activities and hobbies when those same activities and hobbies are normatively shamed and misunderstood. As a point of fact, my respectability is not contingent on what I do on Sunday nights. Much to the contrary, it is the very act of an AMPM Sunday night that emboldens me to work more diligently. The silent fraternity of Blackness inspires levels of tenacity that make the wildest ambitions of our immigrant parents, ancestors, and predecessors just another day of lecture.

Clubbing is an abstract and generally misunderstood form of community for people of colour. It attracts those that have been identified as fringe-dwellers, miscreants, and deviants; the lyrical content of our music is vulgar, our so-called gyrating is seen as scandalous, and nocturnal life is seen as belonging to those who seek to escape the nominal responsibilities of the day. It is certainly not ‘fit’ by those standards of propriety and professionalism that have been structured by white patriarchal actors. Ironically, these same actors attempt to reproduce and commodify this sense of community; these attempts are, unequivocally, in vain.

I have been to many clubs in Toronto as well as working in one, and as such, I am intimately acquainted with the competitive promoting culture; everyone wants everyone at their event and at their regular spot. The competitive edge that Kasa has gained is not a secret, elusive formula that he has concocted, but rather the mere and indelible facts of his genuineness and authenticity. Because of his origins as a DJ, he has a love for and understanding of how the right music and playlist progression can make or break a night. He befriends and familiarises himself with the countless faces he sees and his sageness makes him such a lovable character in any club night story. He has overcome significant obstacles to grow his business venture and has established a promoting collective with his partner and is supported by many other hardworking and spirited colleagues. He continues to dream and look forward, seeking to expand in unprecedented ways at an incredibly young age.

Kasa and I differ in our day to day lives but are in many ways the same. I, too, seek to bridge gaps and transform what is seen as the ‘norm.’ In doing so, we both go down a path untraveled. His courage is my courage, and I am deeply humbled and proud to call him my friend.