Waiting for Chinx: What Really Happens When Your Favorite Rapper Appears at The Strip Club

Even before arriving at Club Perfection, a gentleman's club located just off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway service road (itself adjacent to another, presumably unrelated strip joint), the warning signs were there. For starters, the flyer posted on the Coke Boys rapper’s Instagram boasted “CHINX LIVE - WITH HIS SINGLE “GIVE A F*CK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS,” the absence of the word performing giving me pause as it had often done for prior events at this Woodside, Queens establishment. A too-good-to-be-true lesson from childhood rang in my head, but instead I opted to suppress this retained wisdom and take a chance. After all, even the worst possible outcome would at least involve strippers.

Navigating an adult website often feels like traversing a malware minefield, but being a thrifty man I zeroed in on Perfection’s RSVP link, which led to an Eventbrite page that, despite my best efforts, wouldn't process the request unless I was: celebrating a birthday, “requiring” bottle service (their wording), or needing limo transportation to or from the club. Frustrated but undaunted, I dialed a number at the top of the page and left a message. From there the service transferred me to a dude most definitely unaffiliated with Eventbrite, who then took down my vital information. Less than 10 minutes later, the promoter texted a link to the same faulty RSVP page. While technically still weeks away from my actual birthday, I figured it was time to begin celebrating.

After a few short walkable miles alongside the consistent whirr of BQE traffic, past industrial buildings, desolate lots, and a rather well-lit albeit closed U-Haul, I arrived at Perfection, an empty Red Bull poking out of my down jacket pocket. After a fairly standard door routine, I stepped into the room, a large box with a central stage, protected by a bar perimeter. Two dancers were performing, so to speak, neither doing very much for the early crowd. Against all four walls were elevated VIP zones, none of which seemed all that private. Adjacent to a DJ booth atop a pillar in one of the corners, Mylar balloons commemorated Jasmine’s birthday. If there was a more intimate, Champagne Room type space, the beer-swilling likes of me weren’t about to get invited.

Still, I felt more or less comfortable. A born-and-bred New Yorker, my earliest strip club memories formed at Queens establishments not unlike Perfection, something I expect a native like Chinx had experienced to some degree. Then underage and naive enough to think I’d actually somehow conned the disinterested bouncer with my uneven facial hair, I fell for buxom blondes with thick Russian accents, witnessed basement “lesbian shows,” and left stinking of the kind of perfume one could only find at a card folding table on a city street. Now an adult, I watch neighborhoods of my home borough like Long Island City succumbing to revitalization and gentrification, and with a perverse sense of civic pride I remain somewhat heartened to see topless clubs like Scandals and Show Palace defiantly persevere.

Ready to nurse my first of many Coors Lights of the night, I plopped down onto a barstool next to two women, one in a Minnie Mouse tee, both less vested in the inaction on stage than the distracting glow of their cell phones. The beer prices, wavering between $9 and $10, were not much worse than those at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, just four miles away. As the room filled with a startlingly fair female-to-male patron ratio, a function of a favorable ladies door policy and the promised “Amateur Night” contest, the number of strippers on stage doubled, with several more lingering around the bar chatting, quietly waiting their turn, or entertaining those visibly with stacks to burn.

Two of the off-stage entertainers made their rounds as a team, grinding individually and sequentially against patrons without prompting. When it came my turn, the first demanded, after demonstrating a few self-imposed ass slaps, “Hit me.” Ever the gentleman, I obliged. “Harder,” she insisted, and then “harder” again. After slipping some singles into one of the handful of strings keeping her tentative outfit technically within the bounds of the law, her even more ample bottom partner took over, leering backwards at me and rubbing against my puffy coat. After a few seconds of this, she admonished, “You don't wanna tip me?” while the first insisted, “Don't be shy, baby." It wasn’t long before I began to wonder when the hell Chinx was going to appear.

The night’s DJs, which included Power 105.1’s own Prostyle, repeatedly took to the mic with some encouraging variant of “Chinx in the building!” providing a spastic reprieve from the club-vibrating bass. Featuring hardly any throwbacks, their Rap State Of The Union sets comprised current daytime radio fare like Kid Ink’s “Show Me,” T-Pain’s “Up Down,” and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Paranoid,” alongside deep bangers like Juicy J’s “She Dancin,” Que’s “OG Bobby Johnson,” and Young Thug’s “Danny Glover.” Rick Ross tracks got played so often he might very well be the patron saint of strip club DJs. Every time a French Montana “haaaaaaan” came on, my heart briefly swelled with hope.

Hours passed and the party turned to a debauched mob scene, rainmaking and bottle popping increasing in frequency. Bottle service felt like an event, with dancers affixing sparklers to the tops of the marked up booze and parading them to VIPs. On stage, one stone faced honey stuck a plastic cup between her buttocks, encouraging men to shoot their crumpled bills into the makeshift hoop. (One man, perhaps overexcited, confusedly showered her with singles instead.) Elsewhere, two dancers simulated oral on one another while a third performed pole acrobatics. Personal hookahs multiplied; an eager photographer made the rounds offering precious memories to those interested. A no-nonsense female patron exchanging $100 in singles was soon flanked on both sides by eager twerkers. Up in one of the VIP areas, someone was extensively filming with an actual video camera. I glanced listlessly at the TV screen showing the 1998 Godzilla reboot with Matthew Broderick and sipped the dregs from my beer, tossing balled up dollars absentmindedly at the stage.

If Chinx was indeed there as promised, he was almost certainly somewhere out of sight having way more fun than me. Seeing my obvious concern, a bespectacled bartender in a skintight bodysuit and hoop earring big enough for a trained lion to jump through made eye contact and smiled. “You look out of it,” she says. The earlier Red Bull more or less worn off, I mumble something about it being a long day, to which she replied, "I’ve been up since 7:30. I work two jobs." I made sure to tip a bit more in the next round.

More than three hours after I’d arrived, I’d begun to accept my folly and tried to make the best of the situation. Sure, it seemed like Chinx Drugz really didn’t give a fuck about my feelings, but it was Thursday night at a goddamn strip club, so being bored was not an option. I spied one dancer in VIP receiving in-house medical attention for a foot injury, a large bottle of drugstore brand hydrogen peroxide and cotton balls close at hand. A persistent singles shortage threatened the entire operation repeatedly. Disputes between and amongst bartenders and dancers received firm mediation by managers, and the occasional out of line male patron found himself warned into better behavior. One dancer managed to speedwalk behind the bar and snatch another by the hair, though security pulled them apart swiftly with nary a “Worldstar!” uttered. The club experience offered something for everyone.

With curfew looming, DJ Prostyle dropped “Feelings” and a twinkle of hope emerged. A man took the stage, microphone in hand, and if I squinted hard enough I thought I could convince myself this was indeed Chinx. I could not. The unnamed individual proceeded to emcee the promised Amateur Night contest, simultaneously encouraging ("I'm not tellin’ you to take it off but if you wanna win, baby…") and berating ("Look at them socks!") the female aspirants hoping to make back some of the money they’d burned through earlier. Vacillating between stalking and outright ignoring the amateurs, this not-Chinx gave the four contestants one last shot at strip club glory before turning over their fate to the hooting patrons. One in particular encouraged rainmaking, and was ultimately dubbed the winner.

Nicki Minaj’s "Lookin Ass" played and I felt like a damn chump. Chinx hadn’t played and he as hell wasn’t about to do so after 3:30AM to a thinned out room. The lights came on and I uncrumpled a bill dejectedly, in stark contrast with the one self-satisfied dancer leaving VIP with a bulky bindle full of cash. Then it occurred to me: I was the only person here who’d actually expected a Chinx performance at a strip club in Queens on a Thursday. Everyone else had gone out to have a good time, to blow off steam. I’d foolishly anticipated Chinx as one might some Rap Game Godot. Even still, most hip-hop concerts have a bunch of no name rappers as openers. This one, on the other hand, at least had strippers.

This sounds almost as sad as Cam'ron's birthday party.

Gary Suarez turns down for nothing. He's on Twitter. - @noyokono