GIrls Rush 2013 048Girls Rush is a pivotal Toronto dancehall event, because for years now, the massive here has switched from celebrating New Year’s Eve (the traditional big night to celebrate) to celebrating New Year’s Day instead – Girls Rush.  In years past, the event has featured stars like Tony Matterhorn and has peaked in attendance to accomodate approximately 3,000 people at the Kool Haus. This year’s Girls Rush took place at the Brampton’s Throne Nightclub and featured music by New York’s Steelie Bashment alongside a host of local celebrity DJ’s and MC’s including a fairly impressive guest pass through by Nicki Minaj’s hot female Hip-hop DJ Diamond Kutz spinning on the one’s and two’s.

The dance was nice for the most part.  This year, attendance dropped dramatically (maybe due to the holidays and/or weather) to around 600 people – young party fans of Hip-hop and Dancehall and a little Top 40 thrown in by Steelie Bashment.  Yes, you read that right – Top 40…personally, I think Steelie Bashment was either bored or experimenting when playing his musical sets.  I say this because, listening to Steelie, you’d really have to scratch your head as to why he kept ‘unsuccessfully’ fucking with the Toronto crowd that came out to Girls Rush.

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Later on in the dance, the lights were turned on for a few minutes – he threw insults out to all of the females at the dance stating that having the lights on was a “good thing” because it would expose all of their ugly faces that they’re trying to cover up with their make up and wigs.  Steelie then bigged up the fact that “all men” cheat, then proceeded to big up all the women who “knew how to fight,” because if a woman does “tek another woman’s man”, then she has to be prepared to deal with it physically if they were to buck up inna di dance.

I could go on, but, I’ve seen Matterhorn and Steenie say the same things, usually done with flair to make people laugh.  There was no laughing this time around and if Steenie was trying to get a forward, he couldn’t buy one that night.  His attempts at humor were met with silent stares from both men and women.  Big up all the women in Throne Nightclub that night who stood up for themselves and didn’t take Steenie’s insults!

Having said that, everything else about the dance was aight.  Fifty percent Hip-hop and fifty percent Reggae is not usually my cup of tea, but, i enjoyed the variety on this night and I liked how the crowd adapted and moved.  DJ’s Whitebwoy and Steenie arrived too late to play, but, the DJ’s who did play played well and kept the crowd entertained.  The newly opened venue looked nice and has some potential to bus’ again, jus’ as long as the proprietor has enough money to sustain it.

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On a final note…I left my camera bag behind at the venue that night.  Talk about being absent minded…why the act of absent mindedness? – close to 4:30 AM, as people were exiting, somebody in the lobby let off what sounded to me like a gunshot.

When it happened, everybody, including me, was more or less stunned.  Why the idiotic act?  A minute later, after people started shifting out of their hiding positions, somebody pointed out that there was blood on the floor.  I looked down to see a small trace of blood and snapped a pic of it (last pic).  At that time, no victim(s) were  identified and security was anxious to clear people out of the venue, including me, without my camera bag.  I guess that’s the “cost” of doing business – better losing a camera bag than my life.  Hopefully nobody got shot or seriously injured – the streets will soon tell.