If you like to loosen up by grooving to smokin’ reggae beats, there’s a gathering you might want to attend this weekend — and the venue’s got you covered if you happen to dance up an appetite. This Saturday, Thrive Cannabis Company (5926 Second St. NW) invites you to smoke, chill and spread positive energy during their Irie Vibes Lounge event on March 29. DJs Selecta Deecee and Rootz Rocka will be playing deep cuts of music you may have never heard before, and Clay Pot Ethiopian Cuisine food truck is on-site with exotic eats sure to cure a sudden attack of the munchies.
“It’s an outlet for people that are going to make an evening out of it,” David “Selecta Deecee” Corran says. “A lot of folks will use it as a pre-party, and then go Downtown when the clubs open. It’s a good time. I like that I can play the music I want to play without being completely responsible for keeping people on the dance floor by playing music that they know the words to.”
Corran says he’s been to a bunch of consumption lounges in Burque, and Thrive Craft Cannabis gives him the closest feeling to an “Amsterdam vibe” he’s experienced. The full barista coffee shop behind the bar uses locally roasted beans from Rusted Gold Coffee, and the lounge whips up wicked, locally made, cannabis-infused mocktails. Corran says he thinks a main draw to Thrive and events such as their Irie Vibes Lounge is the “Volcano Bar” where THC enthusiasts can rent vaporizors and puff away to the sounds of roots reggae and dub music selected by DJs who really know their stuff.
Corran owns and operates Vinyl Consumption record shop, so he’s got a huge selection of rare vinyl to spin. He says his set will include a bunch of dub music, which he describes as “instrumental reggae broken apart and then remixed.” If you’ve never seen or attended a dub show, this might be a perfect introduction to the genre.
“I can get deep into the dub and just set a vibe. And it’s mostly music people have never heard,” Corran says. “It’s a good place to socialize. There’s none of that weird energy of people drinking, especially if you’re older. There are people all the way up to their 70s at these events. Everybody’s just kind of chilling. It’s just a real open feeling because you think, ‘All these people are kind of down with what I’m down with.’”
Clay Pot Ethiopian Cuisine is a mobile food joint and catering business that cruises throughout Albuquerque and posts up at special events like Thrive’s Irie Vibes Lounge. Owner and chef Seble Yemenu is originally from Ethiopia, and her recipes are authentically African. She welcomes reggae partygoers to try flavors and cuisines they may have never experienced.
“Feeling ‘Irie’ is just feeling good, man, feeling high,” Corran says. “The feeling that you have when you’re completely in the moment.”
Irie Vibes Lounge
March 29, 7 p.m.
Thrive Cannabis Company
5926 Second St. NW
Free