Last weekend was full of ups and downs. For starters, on the way to the train station I got into an all-out brawl with a taxi driver who tried to charge me double the price to get to my destination.
Upon arrival to the train station, I challenged the price. He then proceeded to drive me back to my original destination, the courtyard of my dormitory complex. As I went to retrieve my luggage, which contained among other things my newly copped Parisian dress, he ran out of his car infuriated. Unbeknownst to me, this middle-aged, minimal English-speaking man still expected 75 percent of his overpriced fare!
As I made my way to my dorm to browse the net for the next train scheduled to Germany, the cab driver grabbed the opposite end of my suitcase. After about three minutes of the biggest tug-of war battle I have fought since 7th grade, a student and a Resident Assistant (RA) broke us out of our trance.
While I am Ghanaian by origin, I am a New Yorker by birth. As such, disputes with cab drivers are familiar terrain. But the Parisian dress, language barrier and this man’s aggressiveness severely obstructed any alternate diplomatic route.
After about another 30 minutes of negotiations between me, the cab driver, an RA who was presently subbing as a Dutch/English translator, a Canadian student and the many students who now excitedly watched the outcome of my predicament from their windows, the dispute was settled.
Luckily, considering I had an open ticket, meaning I could take any train that was leaving to Germany on that day, all wasn’t lost. I arrived at the station 30 minutes before the next scheduled train to find out that the train was delayed by another 30 minutes, and it was leaving from Utrecht, a neighboring rural town. As I stared at the digital monitor entertaining the prospect of hanging it up for the day, I was interrupted by a French accent of a man who was equally dismayed by the announcement.
We paired up, and began our search for our train to Utrecht. Cyril was a 30something French ex-pat living in Mexico as a photographer who paid the bills working as a tour guide. His business in Köln was hanging out with old friends before joining his family a few days later for a wedding. I told him about my studies in Amsterdam and the invitation to Köln I received from sorority sisters to attend a concert that featured Common, a US rapper.
We successfully boarded our train, which was a snazzier version of an Amtrak with Greyhound pricing deals, international destination perks and drug-sniffing dogs. Three hours and Cyril’s beautiful photography collection later, I was in Köln in search of another train to my sorority sisters’ hotel in Rodenkirchen, Germany, a town 10 minutes outside of Köln.
Upon arrival, there were name shouts followed by mad dashes to give hugs and jumping up and down in delight. It was the kind of behavior that was standard fare for seeing familiar faces in a foreign country. Our goals: German sausage and a photo-op with the caramel goodness that is Common.
But the first order of business was laying baggage to rest and getting food. Two British men that were our wheels for the evening accompanied my two friends and I. This large group made for great conversation and company until we all had to decide what to eat in a country that was light on their English fluency. It took us 30 minutes to order food. When the meal arrived and everyone had satisfaction written on their faces, I was convinced even further about the abilities of the higher power. We spent the remainder of the evening careening around the city taking in the sights of Germany’s landscape while singing 90s Rhythm and Blues hits.
The next morning, we shrugged off hangovers and were amped to meet the man who represented so much in our coming of age stories. To take an aside, to stress the musical importance of Common, formerly known as Common Sense, one of his first singles “Retrospect for Life” is a song about a man who is told by his partner she is pregnant and has an internal discourse about either sticking around or cutting and running.
The music video walks in the shoes of his partner and the strife she could possibly experience if the father, played by Common, evades his paternal responsibility. The video ends with him coming back joyously to support her in her pregnancy. Back then, it was a bold statement about shared parenthood and the lives of single black mothers, a topic seldom discussed by his hip-hop contemporaries.
Common took other risks in his career in daring to be different with a positive pro-woman message. This is affirmed in the music video for “Come Close” a wedding proposal song that features a man, played by Common, proposing to his deaf girlfriend. This was groundbreaking terrain at a time when women with disabilities were completely invisible in the music video world, let alone proposed to.
What undoubtedly also came to mind that morning as we dressed was Common’s career making song “The Light,” a song with then girlfriend, Erykah Badu about love and mutual respect shared between a man and a woman.
It is true that Common’s releases in recent history have been light on groundbreaking and leaning towards contributing to the worldwide project of hypersexualizing black women in the media. Yet, he still manages to glide above the fray with urban struggle conscious, gender power relations focused content that makes patronizing him irresistible.
So, with these thoughts on our mind, it took us 3 hours to get ready. Each sister pampered the other, shared beauty secrets, offered constructive criticism on skirt/blouse combinations, and threw accessories into the center of the room for the taking.
After we were dolled to fabulousity it was time to eat. The first viable option was a Mexican restaurant, Conchita's Cantina, that cooked the spiciest, best Mexican food I have eaten in a long time. It gave me the mojo necessary to scale the campgrounds of the site of Common’s concert in heels.
Summer Jam was held a few miles away from the center of Köln. The campgrounds were perhaps one of the most hippie-communesque sights I have ever seen. Tents were littered around like the 2006 non-profit experiment for the homeless in France. The attendants were people from all over Germany and Europe who gathered to pay close to 100 euros (about $160) for an entire weekend of reggae and hip-hop. Needless to say, the general population on the ground was roughing it and we were a trio that stuck out like a sore thumb among the barefoot and non-bathed.
As a friend of a friend of one of my sorority sisters were able to offer us complimentary tickets to the concert, our energies were focused on devising a plan to get us back stage. Common didn’t go on until 11:30pm that night so we killed time by socializing, and asking around for the best sausages in town.
That was when I hit another speed bump in my travels. The first place we settled on refused to serve us because of our race and ordered our cab driver to take us somewhere else.
Ouch.
We stayed positive in the face of racism and our cab driver found us a substitute that had the Serena vs. Venus tennis championship match on. We found this ironic considering that Common’s current alleged sweetie was Serena Williams. Then, sadly, I was hit by a bout of nausea and sickness so hard I couldn’t even feast with my companions on the famous German sausage. As they toasted, I kept the porcelain goddess company until my bug cleared up in time to leave. The gregarious bar owner was so nice he agreed to personally drive us back to the concert.
We then all took turns negotiating with different guards to no avail, making progress in some areas, yielding nothing in others. Soon it was time to see him perform. We crossed our fingers in unison and hoped for a strike of luck after the performance.
Sweat poured from him as he gave the crowd his all for what seemed like 90 minutes. We jammed to our 90s hits and bonded with the international crowd in one voice. Before ending, that fateful time came around when Common selected one woman from the crowd to dance with him. We propped up our sorority sister that was the biggest fan out of three of us in the hopes that he would select her. Saaadly, a woman outshined us that was a dead ringer for Lisa Bonet. When she got on stage she straddled Common, much to his delight, and grinded him to the disgust of all the women in the crowd. The Lisa Bonet look-a-like was so overcome with passion for Common that she didn’t notice that her gyrating had exposed her right breast to onlookers in the crowd!
It was a bizarre scene to witness at a concert of a man who was rumored to be joined at the hip with a tennis star that lost her championship a few hours earlier. Perhaps his relationship with Serena had ended. Or, their arrangement permitted this variety of grinding as part of his job responsibilities. One can never tell.
After the performance, we called out to his band after much of the crowd had disappeared. After a few minutes of conversation, the photo-op was ours. However, I couldn’t help but shake the awkward feeling of it all. My feminism rears its head in everything.
Yet and still, I am human.
In the picture below, I am smiling so hard my eyes are blinded and my cheeks are about to snap. Before the picture, Common complimented my outfit and positioned his hunky, masculine hand around my waist before settling on my shoulder. It is a feeling I will always remember with great fondness.
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1 comment:
I'll be the feminist groupie to comment with no hesitation. You look fashion forward and fabulous with my baby daddy!
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