Clubbing in 1990s and the endless discotheques in Nairobi
The Florida 2000 nightclub, famously known as Madhouse, was in this building on Koinange Street. The building has since been brought down.
Back in the 1990s, party life was at the heart of Nairobi’s central business district. Forget the silence now, especially after offices close.
The streets were insanely loud, pulsing with reggae, blues and ragga music. Discotheques, or “hare” as we called them then [nothing to do with a rabbit], were not just playing music, but competing in a joyous kind of war, and every club wanted to win.
There was Florida 2000, or F2, which had a long mirror, and if you had no partner, you would dance with the mirror. It had its siblings. There was F1, also known as Madhouse. Here, you paid for how deep you wanted to go into the madness. The first level? You were watching. The private corner? You were in it. Then there was F3 at the corner of University Way.
On Koinange Street, there was Dolce, owned by Habib Omar Congo, the light-skinned man. He also owned Lips, which drew young people in oversized jeans. And Bubbles on Moi Avenue.
Mang was for those downtown. Hollywood and Monte Carlo were where the reggae spirit never slept. There was Ainsworth, Visions [big up to DJ Alloys Gor Biro], Simmers, Arturo’s, Fahrenheit, Beat House, GS or Garden Square, Annabels, Carnivore and Club Zanze near Kenya Cinema, where lovers came to test out what it meant to be young. Then there was Boomerang, perched on Museum Hill like a promise of good things.
A colleague told me “If you don’t mention DJ Paco Perez, don’t even bother writing about 90s nightlife”. And she was right. Paco was a legend.
Lovers of discos
From 9pm until 5am, the city did not sleep; it belonged to us lovers of discos, or so we liked to believe.
When we left to go for hare, we did not walk out the front door; that was for people with permission, and no mother in the 90s permitted you to go out. We sneaked out like fugitives of joy. Through windows, barefoot, careful not to be heard.
We knew the creaky spots on the floor that could betray your whole life’s joy. We stepped over them like landmines.
Our joy was sober. We drank Fanta and Krest, yet danced on tables. Alcohol? That was for older people.
We had no money. No Uber, no night matatus, no wababa sponsors. We were our own sponsors.
If you couldn’t afford a taxi, and let’s be honest, most of us couldn’t, you stayed until the very end. You waited for shikashika time, which came after 2am, when the DJ dimmed the lights a little and played blues.
This was when you danced with the love of your life, chest to chest, to Keith Sweat or Toni Braxton. You didn’t talk much, but at exactly 5am, you left hurriedly to catch the first Kenya Bus.
Because after that, you’d find your mother awake. And Kenyan mothers didn’t ask questions. They didn’t spank. They “killed”. First with silence, then with eyes, then with a lecture that peeled the skin off your dignity about how going to the disco would turn you into the kind of girl people whispered about in church. This was followed by slaps.
Cheap lipstick
So you came back just before dawn, shoes in hand, heart racing, cheap lipstick smudged, smelling like sweat and someone else’s Yolanda perfume. You knocked softly on the window. A distant relative, a villager, who was being housed by your city parents, was your accomplice. No questions asked, she opened the window or door for you to sneak in.
But by 7am, your mother had dumped dirty clothes outside your bedroom or yelled for someone to light the jiko. Party or no party, house chores had to be done, and you jumped out of bed and did it half-asleep.
No 90s Nairobi night out was truly over without that stopover at Munyiri’s Fish and Chips. The fries were always soggy, always too salty, and always exactly what you needed at that hour.
Now, the CBD is quiet. Respectable. Almost boring. The streets where we once danced now hold banks and cafés where workers carry giant fake Stanley cups just for water and sip herbal teas.
We are in our 40s and 50s now; adulthood has beaten our rebellion. We no longer sneak out; we sleep early. We don’t dance on tables; we complain about back pain. Our Fridays end with news bulletins.
