The Night I Almost Met Busta Rhymes

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Sunday 22 November 2009 10:53 AM

First and foremost, let’s get this much straight: I wanted the title of this post to be “How I Met Busta Rhymes” and not what it is.  I’m sorry if the title ruins the good part but I’ve got to tell the story straight.

Oh boy.  Where to start?  The story of one night always seems to start at least three weeks ago.  My roommate invites me to this thing they call “Fiesta” that is some big concert in Dar es Salaam that they have every year.  It’s a lot of local popular hip-hop and Bongo Flava music but also it sounds like they wrangle in one big American name every year to headline the thing.  It was 50 Cent two years ago, Jay-Z and Beyonce last year and as you have hopefully deduced, Busta Rhymes this year.  I was just as confused as the rest of you ought to be because I think Busta’s popularity peaked when I was midway through elementary school, but I don’t really follow the whole hip-hop music scene so it’s possible that I don’t know what’s up.  One of the concert organizers died a few days before or had a death in the family I think so they postponed the show from a few weeks ago until this weekend and I went and saw Inglourious Basterds instead.  I was never really planning on going anyway but I just heard about Busta Rhymes going to be in Tanzania so I was sort of interested in hearing more about it or seeing pictures or something.  I did think it was cool that he was good enough to not bail because they moved the date of the concert, too.

Fast forward now to yesterday in the cafeteria early on a Saturday afternoon.  I see my friends Laura and Ashley are also getting arriving there at the same time I am with Dylan and I heard that they went out the night before to hit up some clubs with this random guy named Omar so I wanted to hear what their story was.  Laura met Omar the weekend before at this party organized by some students at a bar in town and apparently he’s got the hots for her.  I don’t know why a lot of girls do this where they talk about how creepy some guy is for a week but still end up going out with him next weekend.  Maybe it’s because he has a car (which changes everything in Dar) and he offers to pay for you and two of your friends to go out clubbing with him.  He’s apparently some pretty big high roller guy who is a DJ and hotel manager on Zanzibar and when they went out, he knew all of these important people and even got them into the first club for free.  He also bought them all dinner and paid for their drinks during the night and Laura still was able to fend him off by the end of that night.  What I also find out from them is that they’re going out again the next night to the after party for fiesta and Omar’s on the guest list as Omar +3.  She says she’s taking my friends Kelly and Emily who are (were) currently spending the day on the beach and weren’t eating with us then and there.  I was kind of curious how it got be that those two got be Laura’s wingwomen and I can’t honestly remember the thought process I had at the time but I wound up talking about how awesome of a facebook status that would be.  “Scott Berry MET BUSTA RHYMES IN TANZANIA LAST NIGHT.  THIS IS NOT A JOKE.”  I was saying how the people whose friends would appreciate seeing that status the most and would get the most positive feedback would probably be me, Dylan, and Ashley.  I mean, Emily goes to NYU and Kelly’s East Coast so all their friends are old money, ya know, and they would probably just sort of scoff because they’re hanging out with bigger celebrities all the time.  I love my friends though and I like that they appreciate such random happenstances.  Seriously, you all are awesome.  I wouldn’t trade you if I could.

I didn’t really expect anything to come about from that conversation and I really was just talking for the sake of making conversation over lunch.  I mean, if some Dar es Salaam high roller is trying to show some people a good time, he wants a car full of ladies, not some goofy lanky white dude.  The men here are especially that way generally so I never expected to find myself in a potentially awesome situation.  In fact, I solidified plans at that very lunch to go to 6 PM mass so my expectations were for a relatively tame night.  However, Laura texts me in the late afternoon saying that the girls on the beach weren’t responsive to her texts or calls – I guess it’s hard to keep your phone nearby on the beach – so she says that if they don’t get back to her soon, me and Ashley get to take their places.  I said that would be cool, but do you really think the guy would let me tag along?  She assures me that it would be kosher or at least that she’d help pay my way.  The only catch was that he wants to pick us up at 6 so I had to give my friend Kasia the unfortunate news as I saw her on the way to church that I can go to church every week but this is the first and only time I will ever be in a position to meet Busta Rhymes.  She took the news alright and when she went to the church there was a wedding going on anyway so it looks like I was meant to go live it up.

We were kept waiting for about four and a half hours and I didn’t get the free barbecue party dinner or drinks that I was promised but he finally showed up around 10:30.  This would have been alright if we were told this originally because Dar night life doesn’t really start until well after midnight but I was yawning and damn near out of excitement by the time he actually showed up.  The girls actually made it back from the beach and had been for several hours by the time he showed up and Kelly actually tried to usurp my spot.  I was actually sweatin’ there for quite a while because she could probably have done it really easily even though it would have been really really mean.  I don’t think she understood how potentially legendary the night could have been for me when all she wanted was to just go out and she already has friends at home who sleep with rockstars and stuff like that so to her it wasn’t a big deal.  She conceded eventually though and I was in the car with Omar who has to be about 33 years old and also there was this Norwegian girl I know who goes to school here and I never would have expected to see sitting in the passenger seat when I got in the car.  We swung by the place where the party was going to be held and no one was there really around 11 but it was the nicest place I’ve seen in all of Tanzania so far.  It was this hotel/restaurant (you can bet that just about every hotel will have a restaurant here) that was right above this nice beach with a view of the city to the South along the peninsula.  As soon as you walk in, you see this nice, clean, new-looking tile pool with the cool color-changing lights going.  Then there is the big DJ table and, dance floor right next to it.  I wish I had my camera.  It looked like a place for some celebrity cocaine party or something in L.A. where everyone’s just so rich that it hurts.  They had this area to sit down on these swanky white couches right by the dance floor and the first little booth area has a sheet of paper that says “RESERVED   DJ. OMAR” (I swiped this before I left and now have it posted on my bulletin board right across from where I’m sitting/typing right now.)  There was nobody there yet so we took off to go get a drink and then come back.

By the way, I apologize to my parents, aunts, uncles, family friends, church members, whoever else is reading this.  I’m not totally sure of the entire extent of my readership but the content of this post is mostly catered to my friends and I’m even more sorry that it’s going to get a little worse in a few paragraphs.  This is real life though…

We killed some time at this little shed-bar not far from the university before Omar got a call from his friend who said it was happening back at the hotel.  Remember this guy who called though because he comes up again.  His name is Seif or something that sounds like the word “safe” in English.  I also set a reminder on my phone to remember the name of this place and it went off about an hour ago saying “Mediterraneo hotel/bullshit”.  I’ll make the second part of that more clear soon.  We returned to the place after we all finished our bottles, got the car stuck in some sand trying to park, but freed it and headed back in.  Much different scene than before and once again I was completely caught off guard in Tanzania.  The make-up of the people there was at least 75% white people and a lot of them were pretty young looking but we were the only UDSM students there, so what the hell do all these other people our age do in Dar?  I think most of the crowd was European or South African and it’s usually pretty easy to tell this just by looking at people.  Let it be known to all those reading that I hate clubs/clubbing/club life/club culture.  This may break Karly’s heart but she most definitely knows it.  If you read this blog from back in my first year at UBC, I think the theme was my despise of clubs.  It actually could use a good sociological analysis and maybe one day I’ll write a masters thesis on it or something like that but that’s supposing I can tolerate being in the place for that long.  I mean, everyone has their obvious club outfit (might as well be a uniform) on and they’ve generally done obvious grooming.  Then there’s just the way men and women interact at these things.  Not for me in the least.

We slide into our special VIP seats because we’re so special and get some drinks going.  I’m trying my hardest to look as cool and deserving of such a seat but I’m too busy being in shock at how strange of a place I’ve wound up in again.  I was definitely surprised to see the young people there because I hadn’t seen them around campus but don’t let me fool you into thinking it was a young crowd because there definitely were also a lot of white people that had left their youth years earlier.  Laura and Ashley draw my attention to this guy at the bar who’s maybe a little over 40 and just actively petting and stroking this girl’s ass who’s with him.  The thing is that she’s like 22 and black which makes me think either she’s a prostitute or she’s with him because he’s rich (which is also essentially prostitution).  Even though it was nowhere near me, it kind of freaked me out as to whose company I was amongst.  Did I swim into shark infested waters on accident?  Are these people my enemies?  I would have liked to believe that everyone else around was just nice expats who work for NGOs and were out having fun but this was a really ritzy place where everything’s as close to Western standards as I’ve seen anywhere.  “How much sin and morally reprehensible things have these people committed?” I wonder.  I’m a man of the people and I prefer the company of the blue collared, redneck, downtrodden folk that are the real spine of society but here I am amongst all of these high-class, just-here-to-dance-and-be-amongst-other-classy-people people.  I think of that scene in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis gets the sword in the pawn shop and just goes medieval on those sick bastards.

See this is the part of the blog where you’re getting the not pretty side of my mind and I think a lot of my friends can understand better where I’m coming from than my parents or family friends can.  I assure you there’s nothing to worry about.  Whatever impression you had of me before is still right… don’t make me regret sharing my life stories with you.  Consider this education.  And once again, I’m sorry for this next part.

I was a little distracted from the hooker molester because Seif (Remember him?  Well I had just been introduced to him a few minutes earlier as well) had a request of me.  “Have you ever rolled a cigarette or weed before?”  “I’ve seen my friends do it…”  This usually isn’t adequate experience but he just hands me a rolling paper and then pulls this weird little thing out of his pocket.  I look at this little weird lumpy thing and then back at him.  Was I supposed to crush this thing up?  What is it even?  He sees my confused look and says “you open it up”.  Okay… What have I gotten myself into?  I’ve never done this before (see, you should be proud here for at least a second) but I’ve seen other people do it and I’ve watched TV/movies so it can’t be that hard… Actually that’s not even totally what I was thinking but more I was panicking and just moving because he was just standing right there above me and there’s no way I’m getting out of this one alive and well unless I just do what I gotta do.  Think fast.  Okay well it has to be kind of crushed and loose.  Okay it has to be on the paper and then you kind of roll it a little bit.  Wow the pressure’s on.  This would be easier if we weren’t 10 meters from the ocean and the wind wasn’t blowing everything around.  This would be easier if I hadn’t had anything to drink before that though my nerves would be a little more high.  This would be easier if there wasn’t music playing and lights flashing.  Okay, think… You need to tear off some paper and put it in here, right?  Then they always lick it.  Why isn’t it sticking?  Oh there’s actually glue on here.  Oh I have the paper backwards.  Is this even weed?  It doesn’t matter, just keep moving.  “Scott, what are you doing?”  “I DON’T KNOW!  He just handed me this stuff and now I gotta do this” I hiss to Laura and Ashley.  They look confused.  I’m confused.  Ashley, hold this, I gotta flip this over and start over kind of.  Ok you put this here, kind of pack it in and then fold and lick.  This still isn’t really sticking… I spilled this stuff everywhere.    …umm okay it’s holding kind of still… “Guys, as soon as I hand him this we need to get out on the dance floor.”  I give him it and he says thanks or something and I walk off before he can even get a good look at it.  He asks if I want to smoke it with him.  It seems like you’re supposed to smoke the first joint you ever roll but I didn’t even know what I did or know what’s in it so I think I’ll pass.  Keep moving and just get out there and dance.

I still felt like I was in the lion’s den a bit because I hate clubbing anywhere and I don’t know how I feel about any of these people here.  Hey though.  Don’t forget what this is all about.  Busta Rhymes is supposed to be coming.  I want to tell my friends that I met Busta Rhymes, not that I almost met him or was supposed to meet him.  They say the concert ended at midnight and it’s past 2 at this point and it doesn’t seem like more people are coming in.  They said there’s one other after party going on at this other club but some people were pretty confident that he’d come to this one.  Whatever, just keep dancing, enjoy the night.  I ordered a Safari from the bar because I needed to drink a little more in order to loosen up and dance when these people make me so uneasy.  Safari is the cheap, strong beer and it was my way of showing my affiliations to all of the other people around me.  A small protest, but one none the less.  Screw these people anyway, I’m here to meet Busta Rhymes…

The night wears on and still no sign of him.  Is he such a big star that he doesn’t even show up places until like 3:30 in the morning?  No.  He’s not.  I’m pretty sure the dude’s like 40 years ago.  There’s a chance that he has grandchildren.  Maybe he just likes making music and then he goes to bed afterwards or something, I don’t know.  The night was winding down and people were starting to leave.  The DJs only have about 30 songs that I’ve heard two times already so we were on the third rotation.  We sat down, hoping to say we should get a move on and we talked about how nice it would be to get some food though I don’t think it’s early enough for places to be open and it’s definitely too late.  It’s after 4 AM and “I’ve Gotta Feelin’” comes on.  This song must be so old at home and even past the point of people being sick of it, just simply moved on.  I expected to hear it a lot when I first got here but I’d only heard it one time at the grocery store in my first week or so here but I’ve heard “We Are The World” play at that same grocery store (and in my dorm) than the Black Eyed Peas.  You have to admit though that it is really catchy and I’ve got good memories attached to it so I had one last good dance to it before I resigned to lay low until it was time to leave.

Omar gets us back to the girls’ dorm at 4:30 AM after the guards extort some money from us because they helped push the car out of the sand when we arrived (bull crap) and we were still really hungry when he pulled away.  I ask if they have anything to snack on, they say yes, and we start heading up to their rooms.  Visitors around allowed after midnight though and I get up maybe one and a half flights of stairs before this guard starts chasing after me, telling me in Swahili that I can’t come in, and carrying a big club in his hand.  I didn’t even know what he was saying but I would have gotten the message even if it was in Cantonese so I was already heading back down the stairs.  We snacked on some bread, shortbread cookies, and this thing that Ashley’s roommate’s sister made that she calls a “bajaji” and is like a samosa with a fried dough outside.  Insanely delicious.  We converse a little bit longer and I lament at having to be extra careful to not wake up my roommate when I get back but still unlock the door, get my teeth brushed, yadda yadda yadda.  I walk towards my dorm as I see the horizon changing color.  I return to my room to be reminded that I hadn’t put the coversheet back on the mattress after I washed it earlier in the day.  It was late, I was tired, so I just laid down my normal blanket and used the mosquito net as kind of a blanket (it’s past their feeding hours anyway I think).  It was 5:15 in the morning and I think the latest I’d ever been out.  I didn’t get to meet Busta Rhymes but I still lived.

This whole thing was still crazy though and for one night I lived in a world that I don’t need to be reminded isn’t for me.  I’m still not sure what I learned from this night in the end but I can’t lie and pretend like I’m not glad it happened.  That’s essentially the story of my life right there.  I may not have been comfortable with my surroundings, I might have done some things that seem out of character, but I’m still the same person in the end and I have one more story to tell.  It would have been easier to just slap hands with Busta and tell people about that but the point I’m trying to make to all of the journalism majors out there is that you don’t always get the story you’re expecting to find.  You just gotta follow where the news leads.

(Edit: second lesson to journalists found in this post is journalistic integrity and honesty.  Notice how you have to tell the true story even if it doesn’t make you look good.)

God Bless.