By Lola

I spent a good ten minutes trying to Google the word “groupie” on my web search engine but the definitions I found were not satisfying. The dictionaries on Google seem to uniformly define a groupie as “a person who seeks intimacy most often physical sometimes emotional with a famous person.” Do I agree? I am not sure. I think being a groupie can be defined relatively.

For instance one crazy night at Chez Nteba, my girlfriend and I came face to face with local celebrity Lucius Banda, he recognized my girlfriend who is quite a celebrity herself and was about to shake her hand when ‘four rough-around-the-edges,’ women bull dozed their way into his embrace, shrieking and shrilling, deafening the loud music already playing in the background. In the state of mind I was in at the time, I thought this was classless and felt the joy when the celebrity diplomatically shook them off and made his way to us. Where these loud females, groupies? And was my being seen amused with this celebrity, a mere diplomatic gesture or was I as wowed by him? Does that make me a fan or just a confused person?

On another occasion, this time at what I regard as a high class bar (Chameleon), I went to see a show. The almighty and great D1 and Third Eye were launching or pre launching an album and as always, being a fan, I went. So there I was, enjoying the music, reciting every lyric including the yeah’s and uh huns! Until I realized I was not the only one in this crowd representing. It was not just the guys but one particular lady. I call her that because that’s how she was dressed, very lady-like at a hip hop show! Hmmm?  Like me, she is always at every show, knows the words, gets the new album signed and maybe does one better than I do and buys a t-shirt! Does this make her the real groupie? Because we share groupie traits but the difference is she wears a suit to a hip hop show. I mean, is she the type that will hire a limo to take the celebrity back to her place, while I stagger back home ecstatic  blowing him Third Eye kisses and rhyming bits of “deeeeep”  or  “Addicted” all the way home? I need clarity!

Apart from these ‘I don’t-know-how-to-bunch-them’ category of groupie,’ I also found the very blatant ones. Ha!!!! They made my night. Now, now, I do not hate on them, it’s just that they were quite clear on what they wanted to achieve that night. They were the ‘ho-fessional’ groupies!!! They barely had any clothes on, threw themselves at the emcees who were, in my opinion, in shock and distracted by the push up bra cleavages and very there low-cut-bottom-showing jeans. Need I say more? These were groupies! These are the type of groupies that make the celebrity flee the scene.

Now, why do I seem to talking about women, when I know this country supports gender equity! Umunthu Theatre, before it closed had a great show once every month called urban soul. It was a brilliant show case of musical art that did not have to be hip hop or the local beat or something gospel, as are the fixed musical genres in this country. Until urban soul, the music scene for me had a lot of grey areas. The show was headlined by a soulful crooner GT. For her, the men in the audience would lose their minds when she took the stage and sang “fever”. And as time went by, I started noticing that it was the same men at every show asking for an encore. Now, according to my definition, does this make these men groupies? I had to laugh out loud one night when  one of guys could not contain himself and yelled “GT! I amma marry you” and got on his knees. Now is that not groupie love?

I really wish I went on a research trip before I wrote this blog but I guess that’s for another blog. However, I just have to state that the biggest groupie fan base is not with the groups or individuals I have cited above, no, don’t be fooled. Thus far in this country, the gold medal for groupie love goes to the Black Missionaries. They have a fan base that follows them all across the country and to their hotel rooms, without shame. At this point I should state that I cannot get sued for this comment because there is an ad on TVM, selling tea of all things, documenting this…lol!!!