Aba A Luke

Two great things hap­pened on the night of No­vem­ber 26. For one, an event dubbed Mi­a­mi Vice sought to re-in­vig­o­rate nightlife ac­tion in T&T, bring­ing the 90's Club Co­conuts venue back to life with some­thing as sim­ple as mu­si­cal vibe.

While in all ac­tu­al­i­ty, the event failed to bring out the mass­es, the mu­sic and the warm em­brace of the old club, which is now home to Spalk­ers restau­rant and bar, were enough to give those who were there a vi­sion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty. Un­like the years of Club Co­conuts, when the DJs would spin from be­hind a glass win­dow, this time around the DJ's set took front stage, al­low­ing for those who came, to see just what was hap­pen­ing with every track mixed.

X-Cal­iber rep­re­sents

Ad­ver­tised as Mi­a­mi Vice–The Mar­di Gras Edi­tion, the event boast­ed a num­ber of perks that sad­ly, could not be de­liv­ered. Not so much be­cause they weren't avail­able, but more so be­cause the crowd re­mained thin through­out the evening, with an av­er­age head count of 80 peo­ple in at­ten­dance.

Mu­sic, how­ev­er, re­mained up to stan­dard through­out the night, with the an­tic­i­pat­ed sound of X-Cal­iber send­ing the crowd back in time to the days of the "Nuts," and bring­ing them in­to to­day's world of hip-hop rhymes and dance­hall beats.

No­tice­ably ab­sent was X-Cal­iber head hon­cho, Dawg-E-Slaugh­ter. Im­manuel Out­clear and Yun Lennox, fea­tur­ing Mazel, were al­so among the DJs who pro­vid­ed in­com­pa­ra­ble mu­si­cal en­ter­tain­ment. The crowd, though thin, en­joyed them­selves through­out. And just af­ter 2 am, when the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed 5 Star Ak­il made his en­trance and plant­ed him­self on stage, the vibe evoked im­me­di­ate­ly be­came that of an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for life.

Thank­ful for life

On April 8 this year, the MC, whose re­al name is Ak­il Bor­neo, was shot by a gun­man some five times about the body. Re­ports in­di­cat­ed that he had been leav­ing the Pan­ka Street, St James area around mid­night when the in­ci­dent oc­curred. Since that time, Ak­il, whose As­so­ciate De­gree sound sys­tem had been a force to be reck­oned with for many years, re­mained out of the game. He man­aged to prove that with fight comes pow­er. On stage, the youth­ful flair of a young man, in­spired by the sweet­ness of be­ing alive, showed.

He screamed on the mic, an­nounc­ing that he was back and would not be shut out. His en­er­gy was pure and his words deep. Ak­il made it clear that he was thank­ful for life, and urged those in his pres­ence to be thank­ful as well. With plans to main­tain week­ly nightlife ac­tion at the once pop­u­lar Cas­ca­dia at St Ann's, dee­jays on the night an­nounced a reg­gae Sun­day event that would have be­gun on that Sun­day, No­vem­ber 28.

Notwith­stand­ing the fact that many who came out on that Fri­day night had ex­pe­ri­enced the thrill of Club Co­conuts, the pos­si­bil­i­ty is rife that a new spin to the old hot spot could de­rive a pos­i­tive out­come.