The Hip Hop Highlife

Elle J Small goes undercover on London's elite party circuit. The discovery? Suited and booted city bods, page three stunners and half the cast of Eastenders getting down right durrty to the likes of 50 Cent, Rah Digga and Mark Ronson. What on urban earth?

It's 11pm on a Tuesday. Most respectable individuals are already tucked up in bed with the heating on full blast. Not London's prestigious party people. Why? Well for starters, if you're among the 'it' crowd you'll understand that boring 9-5 jobs just don't cut it in the world of bling! With nothing to get up early for the next day; models, overseas businessmen, air hostesses, TV presenters, singers, DJs, rappers, actors, actresses (and of course glitzy wannabes) head straight to the west end for a night of alcohol-fuelled action. And, erm, hip hop.

The chosen venue tonight is the world famous Chinawhite and my associates are 25 year-old Virgin airhostess Joelle Rawlings and 24 year-old actress/ presenter Naomi Gibson. They know one of the promoters, so they've put me on the guest list (otherwise it's a big phat £20 cover charge). I arrange to meet them inside. After driving up and down the west end's Air Street for nearly half an hour, I park my G-reg banger somewhere between the V-reg Mercedes and the brand new Bimmers.

Waiting patiently in the guest-list queue, I'm shocked as I witness a homeless person being verbally attacked by the drunken suit in front of me. "Why don't you just go and get a fucking job and stop begging for money," shouts the middle-aged man in his Sloane Square drawl. "I work fucking hard for a living." The painfully thin girl replies defensively, "Excuse me, but my mother was a heroine addict and I was born a homeless heroine addict, what chance have I got? Would you employ me?" The drunken suit tells her to fuck off before another homeless person appears telling him do exactly the same. "She only wants a quid for a cup of tea! Leave her alone, you wanker." Then, just like out of a movie, a stocky, 50-plus American at the front of the queue, wearing a thick gold bracelet and a friendly face, takes the homeless girl's scrawny hand and places a fifty-pound note in it. "God bless you," he smiles.

This whole scenario has somewhat stunned me, but not nearly as much as the scene downstairs in Chinawhite. The very same suits in the queue are at opposite ends of the lushly designed, oriental-style club attempting to boogie to Elephant Man (?) On the dance floor, somewhere between huge, green plants and tables full of Veuve Clicquot champagne and strawberries, I find Joelle and Naomi getting down to "Pon De River, Pon De Bank." Before venturing in to join them, a vodka, lime and soda is in much need. I try not to gasp when the barman -donning a David Beckham Barnet- asks me for seven bloody pounds fifty! For one measly drink! Oh well, it's all in the name of research (hint, hint Editor!)

After greeting the girls, and catching up on Naomi's recent movie role and Joelle's next trip to New York (dahling), we get jiggy on the dance floor. In fact we're having such a laugh and enjoying the music so much, I almost forget the obscure crowd surrounding me. I ask Joelle if she thinks it weird that there's such a bizarre mix of beautiful girls, old business men, young hip hop heads and the odd coked-up looking old bird thrown in for good measure.

"Yeah it's a weird crowd," she agrees. "But there are some really cool people in here. Unfortunately there's also a lot of twats." She searches for her Marlboro Lights inside her hot pink handbag- the perfect match to her pink Timberland stilettos. "I used to go out to a lot of garage and hip hop raves when I was younger and it was all about the music. People were just up for dancing and having a laugh. In clubs like Chinawhite and Browns -you know, all the posh west end places- people just wanna pose." Naomi feels the same, "The music's great and the actual venue's wicked, but the people really don't appreciate it. There needs to be more people genuinely into the music and up for having a laugh down here. Hats off the to the DJ, but it's just a shame that half the people are dancing like my Dad at a wedding!"

So why on earth, you ask yourself, if Joelle and Naomi aren't exactly feeling their fellow clubbers, do they come to Chinawhite and other notorious west end hangouts? Well for starters they both work unsociable hours- often weekends. How many decent R 'n B and hip hop nights do you know about on a Tuesday? But the main reason the pair frequent these clubs is actually far more serious. "The clubs we used to go to just got too rough," explains ex garage raver, Joelle. "At least when we come here, we know someone's not gonna get shot!" (I, myself, used to rave with Joelle down at those very clubs. So I can totally understand where she's coming from.) "The vibe here is positive. We know we're in a safe environment."

Erm, don't speak so soon. Three suits are approaching fast at 7 'o clock. Ever the pros, Naomi and Joelle shimmy themselves slyly away from the predators. I, on the other hand, feel obliged to make polite conversation with "Sal from Ecuador"- a middle-aged man, wearing (excuse me while I choke on my Wrigley's Extra) brogues! Yes, I repeat: brogues! You know, the brown, lace-up jobbies. Sal tells me he's here on business- importing roses to Europe from South America (?) Neither he nor his Swedish associates have ever been to Chinawhite before; they were recommended the club by a colleague. Sal tells me he has an office in Miami and regularly goes to Nikki Beach (think Chinawhite, but much nicer and by the sea) and similarly swanky venues all over the world. Whilst Sal explains in great detail the process of flying refrigerated roses around the world, his two Swedish compadrés are eagerly eyeing up Naomi's long blonde locks, Joelle's Timberland stilettos and the legs that wear them. I ask Sal, as Methodman blasts out of the speakers, if he honestly likes the music here. "I love salsa, but that's all we get in Ecuador so I love it when I'm in Miami and London cause I get to listen to rhythm and blues." Case closed. The last time I heard the actual words that R 'n B stand for was on Terry Wogan's Radio 2 show, in my Mum's kitchen. Hmmm.

The DJ playing the "rhythm and blues" is 28 year-old Mo- a Chinawhite resident for over three years. He tells me celebrities are ten to the dozen at CW and that last night Sean Paul was here. "I was down here with Blu Cantrell and 50 Cent the other week," says Mo, 50's MTV European tour DJ. "It was really good, he [50] was on the mic for a little while and then we ended up going to the guy's house who owns the club. It was like a £23 million mansion. You can imagine what kind of things can happen there. That was quite a party... Let's say you put all the places on MTV cribs together; it would make them look bad... we're talking about an indoor swimming pool, twice the size of somebody's house." The Mayfair mansion and Chinawhite's owner is a 33 year-old called Ehad, Mo tells me. I later discover that Ehad is apparently the son of an Arabic Prince.

This is all very interesting, but what I really want to know is: Why, three or four years ago, would you be more likely to find Kate Moss boogying to Pete Tong than Blu Cantrell grinding to 50 Cent? "It's all because of me," informs Mo with the modesty of Chinawhite regular and infamous glamour model, Jordan. "No, seriously," he laughs, "it is all because of me... I started DJing on a Tuesday 'cause they thought no one really came out on a Tuesday, so they didn't mind what happened too much. But then two weeks after I got there the Tuesdays became as big as the Wednesdays. They started making like £10,000-£15,000 on the bar... now it's all hip hop and R 'n B."

Mo believes this trend to be down to hip hop's current commercial success in the UK. "R 'n B and hip hop is pop music. Forget about the underground. Christine Aguilera does R 'n B, Justin Timberlake does R 'n B. Either you play that or you don't have any customers. The people that used to like house, like hip hop and R 'n B now." And Mo is loving it. He's on a mission and has been ever since he bought his first piece of vinyl. Born in Senegal, Africa and now residing in Ladbroke Grove, London, Mo actually grew up in New York City. "Russell Simmons used to come to my parties, Puff Daddy used to come to my parties... even in New York I was one of the rare DJs that dared to play hip hop in the mainstream clubs that played house music. If you ever interview Russell Simmons, ask him, he'll tell you."

The reason, Mo tells me, he went on this mission was because he "never bought into the whole hip hop culture" and was always just into the music. "I don't really wear baggy pants. I'm not into the gun. I'm not into the hood. My Dad was a Diplomat- I grew up in a United Nations family in a good New York neighbourhood, but I loved the music. That is the only thing I like about hip hop. I don't like anything else." And it seems that half of Chinawhite will agree with him, even if half of them can't really dance to the music they currently love (mea-owch!)

As I sit and watch the geezer from Eastenders, who plays the DJ that cheated on Zoe (I think his name's Ronnie, correct me if I'm wrong), dressed in a suit, nodding his head to Nas -a whole heap of stunning admirers (all with 10" waists and DD boobs) flocked around him- I somehow make sense of this weird world. C-list celebs, like Jordan (who Mo says is here "every week mate, it's like her fucking local") and "half the cast of Eastenders" (whom Joelle says she regularly spots), come here for the status. And to be snapped by the gaggle of paparazzi, patiently waiting outside. Hip hop faces, like 50 Cent and Sean Paul, are rumoured to be brought here by their record labels- so as to avoid any nasty confrontations at the more 'ghetto end' of the hip hop club spectrum (plus of course to enjoy the 'freaky gyals dem' and the VVIP). Then there's a whole bunch of models and dancers (male and female) who come here to network, pose and get as many free drinks as possible. Then come the suited and booted businessmen. There's mutual love here: Chinawhite loves them for their credit cards and they love Chinawhite for the pretty girls. And, of course, the street cred earned from dancing to "rhythm and blues". Erherm. Finally comes a small handful of people who work unsociable hours (like Naomi and Joelle). They are, quite simply, here to: listen to hip hop, have a laugh and appreciate the Buddha heads, flowers and satin cushions (without having to worry about dodging bullets on the dance-floor). There is one question, however, that is extremely worrying me. If, in six months time, folk music becomes the new hip hop- will Naomi and Joelle be sentenced to evenings in, with a bottle of rosé and Emmerdale Farm? Or will some cunning promoter realise there's a massive gap in the market, and a happy medium, somewhere between ghetto and posh? Answers on a Christian Dior-designed postcard please.

BOXOUT: DJ Mo on Chinawhite Mixtape, 'The Gossip'

"I'm making a mixtape for Chinawhite called 'The Gossip'- what I did was take a tape recorder into the women's toilets. I gave it to the toilet attendant and gave her £20 to record whatever. That has a lot of hot gossip on it. It's coming out on a mixtape in December; they're giving it to all their members. Of course the names are gonna be bleeped because they speak about pretty big people. I was thinking about taking it on a commercial route, but the legal implications are too big."

BOXOUT:
Other Celeb-Filled London Hangouts that play Hip Hop and R 'n B...

10 Rooms - 10 Air Street, W1
Attica - 24 Kingly St, W1
Browns - 4 Great Queen Street, Holborn, WC2
Elysium Lounge - 9 Glasshouse Street, Piccadilly, W1
Funky Buddha - 15 Berkeley Street, Mayfair, W1
Met Bar - 19 Old Park Lane, W1 (members only)
Propaganda - 201 Wardour St, Soho, W1
Tantra - 62 Kingly Street, London, W1
The Wellington - 116a Knightsbridge, SW1 (members only)


Words by Elle J Small