Fare thee well, Nairobi’s home of song and sin

The demolition of that iconic building on Nairobi’s Koinange Street that housed New Florida Night Club has been met with sorrowful reactions on social media.

The tears of those who knew the space in the 1990s as F1 or Mad House are by no means sufficient to capture the memories of all those who have walked through the doors of that club, from its inception in the 1960s when it was known as Bonanza Club and was run by a colourful businessman called Jack “The Jew”.

Bonanza Club threatened to overshadow the evergreen Starlight Club on Valley Road, the place that now houses the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

Back then, Koinange Street was called Sadler Street, an up-market location on the white side of the colonial colour bar.

Venues like Bonanza and Starlight promoted multi-culturalism, playing everything from local acts like Daudi Kabaka to international stars like Elvis Presley.

As veteran journalist Cyprian Fernandes recalls, “the hottest bands on earth were the Bata Shoe Shine Band, Inspector Gideon and the Police pop band and Pascal (Rochereau Tabu Ley) and his Congolese rhythms”.

“Besides me, you would rarely see a brown skin… the whites were mostly tourists and volunteers from the US.”

When America’s Calypso legend, Harry Belafonte, accompanied the official US delegation to the Independence Day celebrations in 1963, his performances at various spots, including the Gloucester Hall, played a part in popularising the Calypso sound among Nairobi’s emerging elite made up of civil servants, bank clerks and typists.

With massive Voice of Kenya airplay and other visiting acts like Lord Brynner, who played at the Sombrero Club opposite Jeevanjee Gardens, the sprouting jazz bands in the city longed to imitate the high octave sound.

SAL DAVIES NIGHT SPOT

Belafonte made a big impression on a young Kenyan singer, Sal Davies, who had just returned from studies in England and was on the “Uhuru” entertainment programme.

Davies was probably Kenya’s first show business celebrity. He appeared on British TV hosted by actress Shirley Maclaine, and, in 1968, he became a pioneer in film, starring in Mlevi, Kenya’s first full-length movie.

Davies bought Bonanza Club and, between 1968 and 1970, it was known as the Sal Davies Night Spot. He gave many unforgettable performances of Calypso and soul hits like Unchain My Heart.

This 1961 hit by Ray Charles was a standard on the cover version repertoire of the resident bands in Nairobi’s big hotels, such as Brunner’s and Panafric, but no one could deliver its intense plea like Sal Davies did. His own greatest hit, Makini, was equally endearing.

ARCADIA

As afternoon boogie dances rocked the city, the Koinange Street club became Arcadia Night Club. With an entrance fee of Sh5 and the promise of jazz, Congolese music and soul, Arcadia hosted many of the top bands of the day, such as the Monks Experience Band of John Masai and Jack Kagenad.

The star attraction was Ishamel Ali Jingo, best remembered for his funky chakacha mix, Fever. Along with Kelly “Cally the Bushman” Brown and Slim Ali, Jingo belonged to a crop of Mombasa-born artistes who made their way to Nairobi where international record labels like Polygram and EMI were based.

Jingo joined Arcadia’s resident band, which soon changed its name to Gloria Africana. Its main rival was the Starlight-based Air Fiesta Matata featuring the soft crooner, Steele Beauttah.

The rivalry between Jingo and Beauttah was fierce, each claiming to be the king of soul music.

Jingo’s big moment came in 1972 when Gloria Africana played at the Embakasi International Airport to welcome James Brown, the godfather of soul.

Brown, also known as “the hardest working man in show business”, was in transit to Zambia.

He was so enamoured by Jingo’s rendition of Talkin Loudly and Saying Nothin that he left his entourage and joined Jingo on a makeshift dance-floor on the runway.

MODERN LIGHTS

As the disco age descended on Nairobi in the late 1970s, Arcadia changed names again, at one point becoming Sahara. To give the dancers the psychedelic feel of world-class discos venues like Studio 54 in New York, the club acquired modern lights and mirrors and was rumoured to have shadowy peddlers of heroin.

A group of businessmen, headed by Tam Winkie, who was running Florida Club in Mombasa, took over the venue and renamed it the New Florida Night Club. Winkie brought in Steve Aziz, a former DJ and brother of Kelly Brown, to manage the club.

With the closure of the popular Club 1900 on Museum Hill, Nairobi’s nightlife was changing. There were new clubs on Kimathi Street like Tamango (later Visions) and Beat House, which was run by radio DJ Abdul Haq.

Florida also faced fierce competition from Studio 54 at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre which staged afternoon jam sessions that were very popular with teenagers.

As Abdul Haq says, the club succeeded because the management was smart and alert to the needs of the clientele. “Winkie made Florida the entertainment hub it became. He was like the Italian godfather, always slick and he knew the trade.

“The music was great too and there is not a single top DJ in Kenya who didn’t spin the turntables at Mad House.”

REGGAE NIGHT

With the dawn of the new millennium, Mad House became the first club located in the upper part of the city to dedicate an entire night to reggae hosted first by Jahkey Malle and later by Kris Darling and The Dohty Family.

For every visiting international artist, from Congolese giants Franco and Tabu Ley to Jamaican dancehall performers Yellowman and Chaka Demus and Pliers, there was always one venue for the after-party.

“The concert tours were never complete without an appearance at Mad House and the Starlight Club”, says veteran music promoter D.S. Njoroge.

The atmosphere in the club was such that one was never quite aware of daybreak. It was not uncommon to see revelers crawling out onto the busy street as late (or as early) as 7am.

With its reputation as the “street that never sleeps” where you could grab everything from the first edition of the newspaper to a hot cup of tea in the wee hours, not to mention twilight girls, Koinange Street has taken a major hit with the closure and destruction of Mad House.

Whether you knew it as Bonanza, Arcadia, Sal Davis Night Spot, Sahara or Florida, take a moment to celebrate your youth and to mourn for our city fathers. They care nothing for urban history.

Florida is a critical part of Nairobi’s dance and music history. Since the High Court gave Florida Group three years to hand back the Mad House premises to the Kenya Tea Development Authority, the Nairobi County government could have intervened, in many ways, to have that space declared a historic site.

Even as matters stand now, what plans does the county government have for safeguarding some space within that plot to tell the story of Florida’s illustrious past?

Cities go through times of decay, renewal and gentrification. These changes require the skills of many professionals, but it seems our city fathers and mothers have no use for such. In another 10 years, we will have no visible landmark to tell the story of the making of Nairobi(ans).

Nyairo and Odidi are the authors of “A History of Nairobi Dance Music 1960-2014”, an essay that will appear in Goethe Institut’s forthcoming publication, Ten Cities.