Friday night:Emeka Nwandiko
Friday night and I’m at a loose end. Verbal sparring with the other half and the best laid plans for the evening are up in smoke. Or are they? I decide to head for a little- known nightclub called Sankayi.
It is gem of a place tucked away between a diamond merchant and an art gallery on the Oxford Road side of the Rosebank Mall. Much effort has been made to keep Sankayi out of the limelight.
“We are looking for a particular time of customer,” says Venesh, a tuxedoed doorman from Durban, whose smooth-looking face makes mine look like the surface of the moon.
A stiff entrance fee of R70 for men and R50 for women keeps the riff-raff out.
Up two flights of stairs and you feel you have entered the king of all clubs. Stylish armchairs and gilt-edge mirrors await you.
The music is just like any other night club – R&B on and off the charts and a few blasts from the past.
But Sankayi is not any ordinary club. Clement, the Zairean owner, has been managing nightclubs for 25 years in France and Belgium. “I thought it would be good to open one in Joeberg,” he purrs in a heavy French accent. It took me several minutes to realise that he was referring to the one and only Johannesburg.
Rather than face the inevitable scrum at the bar waiting to be served. You can either buy a bottle of your elixir of self-abasement to knock back in the comfort of a reserved ring- side dance floor seat, or a hostess will cater to your (liquor) needs. Leaving you to do what you want to do in a nightclub – just chill or dance.
What is great about Sankayi – a result of the high entry tariff – is that you do not feel as if you are in a sardine can trying to get out.
Sankayi has been open for the last seven months and it has attracted quite a following, largely by word of mouth: young, old, black, white, local and foreign are all united under the groove.
Things don’t start to warm up until after midnight and much later still when kwasa- kwasa music from Zaire is played.
At three in the morning thoroughly soaked with sweat after a good session of dancing, I was left asking myself: Who says a little social exclusion isn’t a good thing?
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