The Beat Drop

Through all the genres of music I enjoy the one that always seems to make its way out after a few brewski’s is rave music. Not happy clappy bee bop bollocks dance music – no no – I am talking about Rave. Suppose they don’t call it rave anymore really with Trance, Electro Beat, House, Techno and Dub Step all coming to the fore as their own separable entities but the ones I enjoy, the ones that stick, all share very similar qualities across all these genres.

It’s 04:00am and Sheldon and I are on the way back from a party somewhere on the Durban beach front. To get from the beach to the freeway you have to go straight through the center of town. Durban center is one of the oldest cities in South Africa and had the most incredible mixture of 100 year old buildings next to super structures next to derelict rat infested slum houses. Sheldon and I were banging along to “Effed up Camel” by Afrojack, giving it absolute horns with head banging and seat dancing while crawling our way through the deserted city center.

We pulled up to an intersection and waited for the traffic signal when alongside us rolled up this bass heavy Taxi packed to the rafters (and out the windows) with a group of party goers. They had a relatively solid tune playing but our effed up camel was better. Sheldon cranked his volume up, put the windows down and we went mental. The taxi next to us turned their music off and they started cheering us along. Hanging out the windows, fist pumping, whistling and shouting “Aweh!” the group got stuck in. Sheldon, spurred on by the drunken cheers, gets out of the car (still at the intersection remember) and starts dancing and throwing down massive moves. I hopped over into the drivers chair and revved the motor and banged on the roof in support.

Sheldon, for whatever retarded reason, throws the Taxi occupants a middle finger and carries on busting a move. He does that sometimes, he doesn’t mean it…he just flips people the burn. No idea why. The Taxi driver was visibly upset and he turns off his motor, opens his door and makes his way out of the van. “Ah kak, here comes trouble. Sheldon and I versus 20 odd” I thought to myself as I started prepping for a beat down…then the most awesome thing happened.

The Taxi driver fronts up to Sheldon, on the street, and in perfect timing as the traffic lights turned green and Afrojack built up, the beat dropped and he started to bust a Kwaito style dance move. Wicked. Sheldon and this random guy then just gave it stick, right there in the middle of Durban CBD at 4 in the morning. The Taxi occupants were going ballistic, I was head banging behind the steering wheel and these two legends were breaking it down in the middle of the green lit street. Sheldon, the big baby faced white guy and the dark-as-night vested Taxi driver just lost in the awesomeness of the moment.

All the best songs, the ones that make you lose your mind; they all got big beat drops. Builds up and speeds up and builds up which leads to a swoosh of silence… 

It’s the beat-drop that connects us all.