There was something so intimate about the first night of Mahalia’s Corner.
It felt less like walking into a concert and more like being invited into somebody’s living room – one where the lights were low, the music was good and the evening had been deliberately arranged for grown folks to relax, reminisce and fall in love with a song
all over again.
Billed as Date Night – Love Vibes, the first of three Mahalia’s Corners scheduled forthis month opened at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Sunday night with intimacy as its central character.
Mahalia, lead singer of 2 Mile Hill, set the tone before she had sung a note.
She stepped onto the stage in a blood-red, floor-length velour coat over black shorts and a white shirt, completing the look with black-and-white booties and platinum hair. Behind her, the set looked like a stylish room in somebody’s home. Her back-up singers, Shaekara and Nareesa, occupied a short sofa, while 2 Mile Hill’s Chadd, Russell, Kris, along with Machaio, dressed in black, brought their own individual flair.
Then came the music.
2 Mile Hill opened with Busy Signal’s cover of the Commodores’ Nightshift, before sliding into their original song Island Ting. The mood deepened with an Alicia Keys tribute, moving through You Don’t Know My Name and A Woman’s Worth, before the spotlight found Shaekara for Un-Thinkable as Nareesa followed with Like You’ll Never See Me Again. The singers moved effortlessly through a medley, their voices blending and separating as the songs transitioned almost imperceptibly. Then Olivia Dean’s So Easy To Fall In Love brought the room back to its central theme, love, but Mahalia was not content to stay in one musical era.
She took the audience backwards, into the 1970s and the era of oldies but goodies, with Teddy Pendergrass’ Turn Off the Lights and When Somebody Loves You Back. RAYE’s Where Is My Husband! added another flavour before Mahalia reached for one of those songs that has become bigger than the woman who wrote it.
I Will Always Love You, written by the late Dolly Parton and famously made an international anthem by Whitney Houston, became a vocal mountain Mahalia climbed with confidence. She did it justice.
For Mahalia, however, the night was about more than revisiting songs . . . . It was about coming home.
“I was super nervous before it came on,” she admitted afterwards. “But I’m always excited to be back because it feels like you’re coming back home.”
And the audience, she said, quickly took those nerves away.
“It’s family that you don’t see for a long time . . . it’s a family reunion.”
That connection has become part of the Corner’s identity since it began in 2009. Apart from 2020, when there was no show, Mahalia has kept returning, creating a space where established performers and emerging talent can share the same room.
This year, the season is shorter, but Mahalia promised there would be no shortage of entertainment.
“Enough vibes,” she said. “A lot of really good art, and art history, and talent, and vocals, and probably surprises in the open mic.”
There was certainly a surprise before the night was over.
An aspiring comedian took to the open mic, facing the notoriously tough Bajan audience, and made his debut.
Then came an unexpected interruption. At the start of intermission, fire alarms sent everyone out of the building. The brief scare could not extinguish the mood, because when the audience returned, Mahalia’s Corner was about to become something else entirely.
At 10 p.m., Lil Rick returned to the Corner (his first time was a while back).
This time, the hitmaker arrived in a three-piece suit and yellow tie, a sharply dressed contradiction to the high-energy Hypa Dawg audiences know.
He wanted to be a lover man. So he started slow.
Breakfast In Bed stripped away the usual freneticism and allowed Lil Rick to inhabit a smoother, sexier persona, as he told the women he could not wait to make them breakfast in bed after a wonderful night.
But the old Rick was never far away. Girls Look Good gave way to Bumpa Inspector, and suddenly the Sunday School was in session.
By Glamour Girls, his jacket had already disappeared. The audience loved every minute.
Then came Mind Off, Jones And Wuk Up, and Lil Rick found himself going low, so low that even he seemed surprised when he executed a split and managed to get back up.
“I hope wunna have that ’pon video. ’Cause I want see it. I don’t know how this pants allow me to get down there and get back up,” he pointed out, as the audience clapped and laughed loudly.
That seem to be the impetus to start the wining, jooks and stabs as he went back in time. Somebody nearly had to Call 911 for Lil Rick misbehaving.
Ah Like Muhself, All Is Rum, Hard Wine and, finally, Best Ting brought the evening to its close.
He thanked Mahalia profusely in his 45-minute set for the opportunity as he was also celebrating 30 years on the soca scene.
On Sunday night, somewhere between the love songs, the memories, the laughter, the open mic and the wining, Mahalia’s Corner reminded the audience why it was not simply a concert.
It is a reunion with music and with memories.
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