One of the unacknowledged lifestyle diseases is the love of old-school R&B music. The propensity to fork out R1,495 for a ticket to freeze one’s butt off at Carnival City watching shadows of former crooners who last had a song in the Billboard charts before the fall of the Berlin Wall is one of the many symptoms.
So it’s a welcome change when an artist still in their prime, like my choice for the “King of R&B” tag, Babyface, announces that he’s performing on these shores in December.
Tragically, my excitement about the Babyface show was short-lived when I saw the poster. Apparently it’s an “All White Soul Session”. No, not the type of session Steve Hofmeyr stages in Orania. Attendees at the upcoming Babyface concert are expected to wear white garb from head to toe. I don’t own a pair of white pants. I find white pants impractical, too much work and frankly, absurd. I draw the line at white T-shirts, shorts, sweatpants and takkies.
White clothes have this magical power to make red wine and turmeric jump out of glasses and off plates into an intimate relationship with them.
Using complex calculus, statistical models and quantum physics I developed Ndumiso’s White Garb Postulate, which can be summed up as: “There is a direct correlation between wearing white clothes and an exponential increase in the likelihood of sitting on molten chocolate.”
Few things communicate that one is an incorrigible optimist quite like wearing an all-white outfit.
However, as objectionable as I find white pants, they are not my greatest gripe about this “all white” nonsense. My biggest issue is why ostensibly grown-up, sane people feel the uncontrollable urge to force everyone to wear a uniform of any kind.
What is this obsession with themed gatherings? Why does your shindig require me to waste hours of my precious day going from costume shops to The Crazy Store looking for a Hagar the Horrible hard hat with horns because someone decided on a Viking theme? And then you arrive at the party to find 37 other idiots wearing the same hat because it was on special at the China Mall.
And if the theme is “1970s disco”, you spend the evening in bell bottoms last seen in Saturday Night Fever, obliterating whatever sperm count you have and forcing you to speak in a falsetto that makes the Bee Gees on helium sound like baritones. The “it’s just for fun” excuse is as flimsy as claiming that you were at a strip club for research purposes for a documentary.
I’m ashamed to admit that before I put my foot down, I attended a Prince-themed party in a purple suit and a Jheri curl wig. All I achieved was to look like a long-lost member the 1970s gospel group, The Mighty Clouds of Joy
Here’s a wild and novel idea for a themed party. Drum roll please: the No Theme themed party. Or, what Christians like to call “come as you are”. The idea is not as controversial as you might think. Humans have been going to feasts for 250,000 years without fancy dress.
Staying with the R&B theme, another R&B legend headed for these shores in the next few weeks is former New Edition lead vocalist Johnny Gill. Like the baby-faced one, his pipes are still intact, I’m assured. He recently hosted a karaoke birthday bash at his house. It’s one those parties you see on “the socials” and get instant Fomo. I resent Gill for not inviting me on the flimsy premise that he doesn’t know me from a can of spray paint.
What struck me is that the guests, who included Jeffrey Osborne, Kenny Lattimore, Shanice, Judge Mathis and Tisha Campbell, were dressed as though they were having a backyard braai in Alberton. They looked comfortable and, more importantly, like themselves, as the Lord intended.
This is all to say that if you are having a party and it is awkward for you to not invite me, just send me an invite with a strong theme like Purple Rain. I’m ashamed to admit that before I put my foot down, I attended a Prince-themed party in a purple suit and a Jheri curl wig. All I achieved was to look like a long-lost member the 1970s gospel group, The Mighty Clouds of Joy.
I’m curious to know what would happen if I purchased tickets to the Babyface all-white show and turned up in an orange top, green sweatpants and red sneakers. Would I get thrown out or would the cameras seek me out — as they did a (now former) CEO cuddling his HR exec at a Coldplay concert?
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