TRILOGY ACTS 3 & 4: ATLANTA LOUIE VEGA & KAI ALCÉ
Kai Alcé
ACT 3
Yeah, you are at the right place. As the car door closes, you overhear faint thumps where you are parked adjacent a curb monitored by vagrants. Walk a block pass the open air parking structure as the ontz expands in the atmosphere. Juxtaposed against the skyline of high rises, onward forward lies the destination. A folding table and portable fence where your mobile ticket is scanned. Grab a smiley face wristband. Say hi to security. Enter. Tents. Vendors. Lounge chaises. Restrooms? Behold the center piece of the event. That is not the surrounding professional lighting towers, nor the arena-sized sound gear but an aerodynamic aluminum mobile trailer titled Rock The Disco Soundsystem. Coachella eat your fucking heart out.
Standing around with dear friends the conversation shifts to how people are making the decision to no longer attend parties. And how spending $45 and over for events is, well forget it. One person notes how they only attend events that are free. As another person brags they will hop on any given airline and fly hours to see their favorite deejays/shejays spin.
When the thig-a-tee thump from beating percussions resonates and the synth warp pulls you into the expanse. There a young girl dances with her loving father. The aged thirty plus party girls bounce about and wave their weaves. The elders with eyes closed are caught in the groove. The twenty bodies sweating are as diverse as entertaining to watch. A true testament of house music that draws generations to move to Quentin Harris featuring Cordell McClary’s “Traveling.”
At the intersection where “Traveling” meets “Inspiration,” there is Captain of Revery #3, Matt Siliman showing off his Sunday’s best: dance moves. The Kerri Chandler featuring Arnold Jarvis tune, the music selector’s anthem as of late, brings additional movers and shakers to the yard. The space is warmed against the blowing breeze and gathered clouds.
But the surprise is hearing the late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin singing “Oh, Mary don’t you weep” on Grand High Priest’s “Mary, Mary.” And another surprise is seeing the King arrive. Who is rushed passed one expensive bottle of bubbly and into the side door of the trailer after a quick photo session with lucky patrons.
In the open-faced airstream, stands Atlanta’s own Kai Alcé delivering some heavy funk and groove be C+C Music Factory featuring Deborah Bond’’s “Pride (A Deeper Love)” (Underground Club Mix). The NDATL founder’s phone is cuffed between his right ear and shoulder. His posture is assuming as unassuming the high-fashion black jacket pattern with vibrant green leafs and brilliant red flowers he wears. “GET IT KAI,” voices yell. Before his high-powered musical journey closes.
Louie Vega
Familiar horns. Filtered. Bass. Reverb. “Deeper. A little bit deeper,” a voice croons repeatedly. That all builds to a climatic refrain before exploding into beats and boom! Grab your dance partner who wears open-toe flat sandals to a Louie Vega party! Who does that? Latin soul makes dancing feet salsa and meringue on a tepid Sunday in late April. Louie opens with the track he closed with a week earlier on Sunday in Dallas, Domo Domo’s “Happening In The Streets.”
King Louie brings the music to the streets. And If the music playing is in the streets, then house music is there dancing in the streets. Against the backdrop of brick and mortar and cobblestones. A makeshift village of abandoned storefronts. Their vacant window displays. All relics of heydays gone by.
Where content creators swarm to capture the perfect cultural vibe. Oh how we have become a dance floor of cellphones. Everyone has a story to livestream. The new art of storytelling. That used to be an art form. However, these days everyone has a reel. Driven by smartphones to Pioneer CDJs, a mixing board, and MPC.
“You keep on living and don’t you dare die,” preaches the late Queen of Clubland, Loleatta Holloway. “My Loleatta” (Dish apella) flutters into the stratocumulus. But Louie has tricks. His production tricks. He drops a heavy four-on-the-floor, handclaps, a low hum that explodes into Sunday service at Underground ATL.
Yep, that Underground Atlanta. Sigh. The once famed property has had more lives than your cat(s). Retail. Restaurants. Nightclubs. Yep. The Underground has been there and done it all. Yet, the Underground has to find its current success. Is it, again, a nightlife district? Art galleries? Nail salons? Or all three? Only time and money will tell its fate. Though mad props to the Captains of Revery for securing the historic locale for their historic event.
Once more, dancers are bent over. Torso dancing. Their Sunday shoutin’ to 3 Winans Brothers featuring The Clark Sisters’ “Dance.” The Louie Vega Latin Soul Version smooths into lush piano keys, shakers, and jazz. The sultry vocals starring Monique Bingham on Vega’s “Elevator (Going Up)” (Dance Ritual Dub) electrifies. A dance circle opens as the dance scientist bops, weaves and kicks on Ron Hall’s “Talk to God ‘Bout It” (Spen’s Sunday Service Re Edit).
View the showmanship Vega gives playing Unlimited Touch’s “Music Is My Life.” Crowned by a tan fedora, Louie’s head turns left to right, up and down. His WALK THE NIGHT black hoodie from his dear friend’s Honey Fcking Dijon collection half-spins leftward as he mouths, “All over the world……”. He spins a knob, pulls his frame forward, when half turning his torso leftward again, he releases the knob pulling his arm way back into the air like, yeah, beeches I just did that $hit.
“Hell yeah!” The crowd responds. As you take a breather on his remix of BeBe Winans featuring Debbie Winans Lowe & Korean Soul’s “It’s All Good,” track seventeen from his “Expansions In The NYC” opus that closes the first hour. Whew. That was a mouthful. And, correct, that is only the first hour of dancing.
The King’s tribe has arrived. Some as far away as from New York, D.C, and Virginia. Their faces painted among hundreds. A community of 50 shades of melanin, peach and in between gathers front and center, their handheld fans wave in the air, and their voices shouting, have made his classics timeless anthems. 1. “I Get Lifted” 2. “Into My Life (You Brought The Sunshine)” 3. “Diamond Life” (a cappella). They’ve danced to them time and time again. So let us journey through the more deeper cuts played during the four hour excursion.
Swing those hips back to the early 2020 release, Angel-A’s “Let Go.” The Kai Alcé Unreleased Trumpet Mix is the perfect soundtrack to the periwinkle playing snake snd streak across the twilight sky. But it’s King Louie needle-dropping local legend Kai Alcé that truly impresses.
To think this intimate affair with Vega was supposed to take place with Kai Alcé, three years earlier.
“See you in a couple of weeks,” @dancinhousehead states as you walked to your vehicle parked on Hilliard Street one early Sunday morning after dancing in the O4W District March 8, 2020.
Two weeks later, March 23, 2020, came and went with no seeing your friends, no dancing with your friends, no seeing Kai Alcé, and definitely no sight of Louie Vega playing live anywhere in the city.
Instead a global pandemic hit. The event was postponed. Then entirely canceled. Ticket monies were reimbursed to all. Protests. Bullet holes. The club closed. All in one year, all hope was lost.
Until 3 year later. April 23, 2023
Post pandemic the city’s underground house music movement lie on life support. Gone are city venues that once hosted soulful house music’s community and culture. Skyrocket rents, gentriFUCKation, and COVID all but killed the scene. However, a handful of dutiful promoters and deejays/shejays are throwing DIY events in unlikely locales. The blueprint is the Captains of Revery, Kieran, Mike, and Matt, their mobile DJ airstream travels to various recreational green spaces across the city. That allows the party people to get down. Open air and intimate.
Back live at the trailer that is the trailer of all trailers. There playing is Leon Ware’s “Rocking.” Don’t ever think the Souldynamic Boot Mix is more floor filler than hidden gem buttressed Honeysweet’s “Exodus Of 21” and Black Magic’s “Freedom (Make It Funky).” Even Captains of Revery’s founder Kieran smiles and dances by.
Hear the strumming of strings. That guitar lick. The finger snaps. Shoes tapping the stones beneath you. Feel the gentle breeze of cool brush on your brow. Your feet dancing off the ground. Jumping. Onto clouds of joy. As another gospel great proclaims, “I’m so very glad that He kept me.” Los Hermandos Soul Savor’s “Another Day” produced by Gerald Mitchell is all Detroit vibes before the music goes bongos and ululating that welcomes the dark night.
Sometime during time and space dancers are sucked into a black hole. The all consuming vacuum that is Vega’s World. Drums. Live instruments. Songs. The Bronx born Vega has been at it for ages, if since the 1980’s. A Master At Work. A songwriter, deejay, remixer, producer, and conductor. Composing his orchestras. Nuyorican Soul and Elements of Life. Yet, the multi-hyphenated talent is so much more. A husband. A father. A family man who spotlights su familia. Anané and Nico. The family man who is said to work with anyone to everyone in the industry. From Robyn to Moodymann. LV’s collabos are limitless. If Louie says yes, it’s gong to be a hit. He is the cultural soul. Who keeps music alive. That NYC disco and house. People can’t get enough of. Evidenced by the screams. “Play that New York City sound” someone yells over Luisito Quintero & Louie Vega featuring Nina Rodriguez’s “Yemaya” that never sounded better. That begs to question the music to come. Is it the songs? Is it the way the music selector plays the songs? Or is it both? That makes music a moment.
ACT 4
“You, you, you….’ The F sharp and C minor notes dot the soundscape. When the tappings of drums dissipates leaving only emptiness to expand. A sound of sweeping ocean waves builds and builds to a climatic fall that washes away Upper Alabama Street. A refreshing rain of vibe and rhythm drenches the tops of heads. Possessed by unspoken rhythms. All bodies dance. Bent over. Feet stomping the ground. Hands swaying on the brick. The Thakzin and Sun-El Musician produced Afro-banger with sutlry vocals by Thandazo's "I.C.U" provides the most cinematic scene of dance thus far.
Sniffing the air. Is that OG Kush? Head turn. Is Black Coffee playing this joint? Cause somewhere the bass and thump gives way to progressive offerings. Made By Pete & Zoe Kypri’s “Horizon Red,” the Crosstown Rebels release first approved by Damian Lazarus and then Black Coffee is now LV certified.
Tony Touch’s “Apaga la Luz” (OG Main) heaps fire and brimstone. The graying of hairs, micro braids and snap backs burn in the effervescent glow of the green turned blue laser rotating performance 360 degree light show beaming upward the Sam3 painted figure praying on the Comfort Suite building.
“Don’t act brand new up in here.” Chicago’s Mike Dunn commands. South Africa’s Caiiro’s “Drummotions” (The Mike Dunn Movement Mix) comes to life when the drum and bass drops on the Nulu 10th Anniversary anthem. That makes a white guy showoff: his shuffle, glide and spin across the cobble.
Recall Vega has tricks. He plays doubles. The percussions of one track underneath the organ and bass of another track making a killer Dub of Black Coffee’s “We Dance Again.”
Production trick number two. When removing the layers, the climax, the ebbs, surprise the dancers with an entirely new song. Without warning. Caiiro’s “The Akan” comes at the heads unannounced with bang and force. Louie, please, please. Give the people a heads up before slaying.
Not only do anointed ministers of music bring out the dance in people, but true ministers of music bring out a different dance in experienced dancers. That “Make you create dance steps you can’t repeat.” Janine Lyons speaks on the Josh Milan produced “I Need To Dance” (a cappella). And rightfully so. Bodies are caught up. Dancing as though they have not danced post COVID. After all, “If I could be a beat, I’d be over by the speaker with a percussion and a whole lotta bass,”continues Janine. Where the PK Sound K12p emits a hi-def romp and haunting hum. The vibes ascending with Bacanito’s swirling keys dancing over electro synths. When the claves kicks into existence. Rapturous joy is experienced on Fiona Kraft’s “Deeper Feelings” (Manoo The Dub).
Who sings this stand out banger? A familiar soprano belts at the top of lungs. The lyrics are almost unrecognizable. Something like “awake, awake, awake.” Piano notes trickle down from the heavens, orchestrated string arrangements ascends, live drums, hand claps and a disco drop that was not made in this world. Angelic voices singing “take the shield of faith.” Only the King can cue a heavenly tune as “Awake O Zion” by Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark.
As for trick number three. Do not just play songs, play exclusives. Take an a cappella from the dynamic Lisa Fischer singing, “Angel come to me, let me be…”. Lyrics that serves as a closing love letter from Louie to his tribe. After all, his fans return the favor, their singing as Louie holds his hand up to his ear. The Heatwave cover always sounds regal. After Phil Hamilton’s mesmerizing acoustic guitar solo, the time to boogie arrives. The drums punch into the sound sphere. Mouths scream! Vega and Fischer’s “The Star of A Story” is ten minutes of disco funk. While dancing underneath the stars.
“One more…” the fresh faces of youth shout.
Honestly, after six hours of pleasure, the time has arrived to clean up and peace out.
Instead….
Back inside The Rock the Disco Soundsystem is the most impressive interior ever. Wall to wall coverage of speakers! Woofers! And sub woofer drivers! In various shapes and sizes aligning the control center. Where rotating green, yellow, purple, blue and red boogies to disco beats. There stands Louie. And to his left stands another silhouette. Wearing sparkling oversized eye frames, a vibrant headscarf and varsity jacket, she belts, “I’m on my knees praying to God.” The voice is unmistakably recognizable. The incomparable Barbara Tucker takes over vocal ad libs, singing live, The Jasper Street Company’s “Praying for You.” Stamping her signature riffs all over the classic Hardrive’s “Deep Inside,” and her Vega Soulful Mix produced “Let’s Stay Together.” On Duane Harden’s “Never Stop” the legendary diva sings a message of unity that brings goosebumps and chills. The only way the Brooklyn now Atlantan knows how.
Walking away from the perfectly executed event. Your every penny and more of the entry price was well spent. In order to experience the best, you have to pay to play. Remembering that nothing is free. Sadly, over time, house heads have grown increasingly frugal. Understandably so, this is the era of inflation. But sadly too, has the quality level of most soulful/deep house events grown lazy as of late. The correlation is twofold: You get what you pay for and you get what you don’t pay for. So for sparing no detail and expense, the award for the best one-off party goes to the Captains of Revery.
Looking up. You stare at the twinkling stars. That take your thoughts to the outer realm of possibilities. Thinking. Louie Vega should throw a music festival. The Elements of Life Festival with his live musicians, live singers and guest DJs, the likes of Kenny Dope and Joe Claussell and Anané. Cause after all, who doesn’t want to experience? The feeing you have danced to the Milky Way, crossed the galaxy and discovered the secrets of the universe. Music.
wrds: aj dance
grphcs: aj art
phtgrphy: aj dance
vd: aj dance
Built with Shorthand