Soul Sunday Session
Zanzi
Oakland
Feb. 18, 2024
Two dogs on a date walk into a bar…
That’s not the beginning of a joke. It’s what happened at a soul night in downtown Oakland.
The night maybe didn’t start well for anyone caught outside when it started raining cats and dogs, which was … me. But I ducked into Zanzi just in time to dry off.
In the upstairs area of the bar, the rain didn’t seem to help the vibes. It was pretty empty, understandably. It was earlier in the night, a rainy Sunday after Valentine’s Day. Maybe people were dealing with a love hangover, or maybe it was the rain. There were no sports to get excited about that weekend, even in this sports-loving town: The Niners just lost the Super Bowl, and the NBA was on its all-star break. (“The all-star game is meaningless,” I overheard someone outside say.)
So I didn’t hold the turnout against anyone. The gods were not in anyone’s favor this weekend. But after a hella long day, I was more than happy to chill for a while.
The mood was still promising, albeit relaxed and laissez-faire. And the DJ was great at reading the room. As a group of friends drank at the bar, the speakers pumped out a mix of soulful, deep house, mellow lounge, and jazz-inflected tracks for everyone and no one in particular. Even if you weren’t dancing, you could still get your groove on, and even if my tastes run more toward classic soul, a good groove still rules all.
There was no one on the dance floor when I arrived. That’s when I spotted the dogs.
One big and one pint-sized, the curly-haired companions lounged lazily next to each other on a couch — not looking that out of place, really. It was a mellow evening, to be sure. A guy snapped a photo of the pair on his phone. “They’re on a date,” he told me, smiling. “They go on dates a lot, but the big guy is trying to be cool.” The big guy did seem like he didn’t have a care in the world, even as the bass reverberated.
Zanzi has seen plenty of packed nights before (they host all manner of events, including poetry nights, game-watching parties, and mixers), but tonight was only for the (literal) dogs and the diehards. You might come back for the weekly salsa night, say, or the popular afro house music night, or the reggae night.
The club has more of a downtown industrial vibe rather than a cozy dive bar or romantic, homey vibe. But when the dancefloor is lit, none of that really matters.
And if you do want a cozy vibe, upstairs is where it’s at. While downstairs has more room to move, the cozier environs upstairs matched the mood this weekend. But when it is time to dance and the groove is in your heart, you might find yourself ruled by the neon-lit sign upstairs that tells you to “Dance first, think later.”
