Koko Bar: There was once a bar

In Kampala, you live for the moment, as moments keep outdoing themselves. You quit, pause everything, and a friend (usually a one Muhimbo) shows up and says, ‘if you are retiring on the third floor, what will those on the fifth do?’ You thus come out of a limbo, and it all starts all over again. But if the revellers of Kampala night life had testimonies, the Koko Bar testimony would be another one.

Because it was not a bar, it was a world of its own. Imagine every good and bad about the world, imagine finding it all in one place. It was a marriage of both chaos and order, both highs and lows. You found everyone, from all walks of life. It was a marriage of hell and heaven, and that is what we came to know as Koko Bar. There was a rule, that it was impossible to do this place once, it took on some of its aura, and it took on some of yours. It was the one place where etiquette was defined as we all went along. But was there even space to define etiquette in Koko Bar?

If one could survive Koko Bar, then they will without a doubt achieve some greatness in this life. For it swallowed as much as it spat out. It could be the bar that makes you say; ‘naye ki Uganda kinyuma’ but it could also be the bar that makes you shout; ‘Naye tulagawa?’ If you think Freedom City at Alien Skin’s show was chaotic, you must imagine Koko Bar recreating those scenes every Friday. There was no guarantee that you would have a drink that night. We always doubted, could Koko Bar’s fun have happened had one removed its flaws? It appeared like the flaws of Koko Bar were entangled with everything good.

How do you define a place that could not go without something being slapped? Someone stealing someone’s beer? And not just beer, you could lose your man, your woman, in fact, you could lose anything. It was both the ghetto of Kampala’s night life, and the place that defined the trends of Kampala night life. It was the place where all hit songs started. For this reason, it had a VIP section (whatever they meant by this), and this was to accommodate the artistes that flocked here in the hope that they would leave with a hit song. Because just one spin by the deejay implied that the song would be a hit without fail.

And there was no option but to dance at Koko Bar. It had chambers. There was the restaurant chamber. Whatever they sold as food, we ate, nonetheless. There was a tavern, for those that wanted to sing to ‘Twayisekko dda’. All apparitions of life after death came to people here. To get a drink at Koko Bar, you needed connections, Koko Bar would test you until it could finally accept you. But even then, it never ran out of surprises. There was always something it was cooking. A random stranger could accuse you of being their ex-boyfriend. And Koko Bar came to define Ntinda’s night life. This is Koko Bar’s eulogy, because it exists no more. And with the death of Koko Bar, the night life transformed from the proletariats to the bourgeoisie. Now, the night life is defined by how bougie you can be.

And bougie on these streets can mean many things. Bougie means that by the laws of demand and supply, tables are always scarce in the top places. So then, there is only one way to get a table. To either buy a table (with a bottle) or with a tip to the guys who run the table economy. How on earth did the tables turn on Pallaso? We went from Okwepicha to a Love Fest and then it was all ‘wuuhu.’

Now if you are reading this and you have no idea how to say; ‘wuuhu wuuhu’, I am glad to announce that sooner than later you will understand. That on one concert, on one walk somewhere, the birds shall sing; ‘wuuhu wuuhu’ and you will understand with a missing wallet, a missing phone or at worst, a slap in the face.

On that note, Alien Skin has introduced a new genre of music. Henceforth, this kinda music will be known as ‘Kimenke’ music or ‘Nkwacho’ music. It can cause hallucinations. You could sleep in Wandegeya only to wake up in Bweyogerere. But again, what happened to Bweyogerere? It was that one place that was bolting, it even had a spinning name, aka ‘Bweyos.’ These days one is forced to wonder, who stays in Bweyos? Does that place still exist? Do they even know about Katongole’s chicken in Luzira? Who is Bweyos? The question is as revolting as the answers! Sounds like a place you go to consult the gods in your clan!

 Twitter: ortegatalks