In Seattle, which has somewhere around 55,000 black folks, these glossy flyers are crucial because the city doesn't have a concentrated or fixed black club scene. Unlike cities on the rust belt or Bible belt, there isn't a specific geographic center that offers black entertainment. Instead, events, clubs, and scenes are wildly scattered across the city, appearing in odd places like Belltown, the University District, Westlake, and Pioneer Square. With the exception of new online sources like Northwest Black Entertainment and the excellent Seaspot.com, fliers are the only reliable way to keep track of these clubs, which are not only dispersed in every direction but rarely last long, since the police are quick to shut them down. In fact, in the past three years four black dance clubs -- The Hollywood Underground, Celebrity, Sharky's Dance Club, and, most infamously, the Iguana Cantina at Pier 70 -- have been forced to close by the police and the indefatigable Mark Sidran, who sees black recreation as the antithesis of civil society, order, and the rule of law.
Though it would be nice to have a stable black club scene in Seattle, I actually don't mind that they're not moored to a central place or location, but instead are scattered about the city, flaring up here and there like gas jets in a spiraling galaxy. Random, unreliable, and unstable, they erupt and coalesce for a year or two, then vanish forever; and your memory of the happy times you spent bumping and grinding in these evanescent clubs is about as substantial as a dream you had long ago. Indeed, the black club scene here operates much like a magic carpet. Local promoters and DJs find a place that will rent them space, and after matters of security and money are settled, they roll out their magic carpet and then, poof -- the Italian or Chinese or all-American restaurant they rented becomes something like a mirage, a hologram of black entertainment projected from some distant planet.
Phat Friday's -- the latest black club to burst into life -- is in the usually slow and quiet quarter of Westlake in the China Harbor restaurant, whose imposing, futuristic bulk suggests the sort of place where big deals between the East and the West are conducted; where statesmen from China order jumbo jets from Boeing executives. Of all of the black clubs that have appeared and disappeared in our galaxy, this is by far the most intangible, the most dream-like. Phat Friday's is a beautiful, perfectly contained social sphere liberated from the gravity of the city.
It has all of the accoutrements of a black club: a photo studio with glamorous backdrops of the modern legend Tupac or a gilded staircase leading to the top floor of a million-dollar mansion, expensive champagne at the bar, women and men dressed to the nines, big prizes for the ladies, and VIP fees for the men. In short, everything that is opposite to the white hipster clubs in Seattle, which, though catering to a more affluent clientele, tend to look like godforsaken, de-industrialized dives. Black clubs are about elegance, "sophistication," and "class." They are about looking smart ("dress code strictly enforced!") and being a gentleman (men pay double what ladies pay, and if you are a beautiful woman you can get in for free).
What enhances and distinguishes the quality of Phat Friday's hologram beyond other smart (or exclusive) black clubs in Seattle's past and present is that it takes place on the top floor of China Harbor, in a large and mostly empty space that has a lengthy window commanding a dramatic view of Lake Union. The effect is that, while dancing to "Still D.R.E." or "Got Your Money," one has the vertiginous impression that the city lights, the boats' lights, the lights on the freeway, are far below on Earth, and that this too-perfect world has come unanchored and is borne aloft on a pure confection of black recreation.
It is hard to tell how long Phat Friday's at China Harbor will last, but I doubt another will ever match or come close to its near-perfection. Unless, of course, a talented DJ like Funk Daddy (who mixes for Phat Friday's and Respect on Sunday nights at ARO.space) or a bold club promoter like Guest Entertainment happens to set up a scene on the top floors of the Columbia Tower, in a wide room whose full-length windows no longer view the lights of the city but the opalescent puffs of drifting clouds. If a DJ rolls out his magic carpet in this marvelous space, I fear the beauty of his hologram would be too intense for me -- I'd faint on the glittering dance floor like a helpless princess in a fabulous fairy tale.
