Ryan Buchanan and his friends play their own bingo game every time they go to Chaka Khan Hacienda, an outdoor summer dance party that attracts a spectacular array of garb. The objective is to spot the diverse configurations of mesh among attendees’ vibrant ensembles, and participants are awarded a bingo space for each enmeshed body part they spy in the packed crowd. The free space at the center, he says, is the mesh crop top, a staple of Chaka Khan events.
“Some people will have it just on their arms,” says Buchanan, 35, of the preponderance of mesh. “Some people will have it just on their chest. Some people will have it just on their ass. People have varying degrees of showing off their body.”
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Since its May 2017 kickoff, Chaka Khan has become one of Atlanta’s most vibrant and beloved parties. The event is held once a month at Pullman Yards in Kirkwood, although it began at Virginia-Highland’s former restaurant 8Arm, which closed its doors in August 2022. Chaka Khan’s host and founder, Ree de la Vega, says that she originally envisioned the party as a space “for everyone that feels othered, where they can come and be themselves.” A veteran DJ and party promoter in Atlanta, she says that many of the nightlife venues she encountered prior to Chaka Khan were created with a straight, male clientele in mind.
Credit: Courtesy of Ree de la Vega
Credit: Courtesy of Ree de la Vega
“I felt like I wasn’t the target demographic for what’s going on here,” says de la Vega, 42. “I’ve never had a bad experience in Atlanta nightlife, where I felt like I wasn’t welcome, but there wasn’t a space geared toward women or that had a femme vibe. Some places are an older person’s or a straight guy’s idea of nightlife.”
A Party for Everyone
The inspiration for Chaka Khan was watching DJ Eli Escobar spin at the Brooklyn party Tiki Disco several years ago. When he played Corona’s 1993 Eurodisco single “Rhythm of the Night” during his set, she says the room exploded with excitement. In that moment, she realized that even well-respected DJs could play “fun music” and that everyone didn’t have to be “so serious about the music you play all the time.”
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Right away, Chaka Khan distinguished itself not just in terms of its playlist, which made room for pop divas like Britney Spears and Rihanna, but the uniqueness of its setup. The party is held on Sunday afternoons, when other people who work in nightlife (but never get to enjoy it) would actually be able to attend. The immediate success allowed organizers to begin experimenting with spinoff parties like the annual Swim Club, which began as two kiddie pools housed in the back of a pair of pickup trucks.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
What’s more, Chaka Khan quickly became a favorite among LGBTQ+ Atlantans, particularly queer people of color who felt they didn’t have a space in Midtown’s white-dominated gay scene.
“I am a Hispanic, queer man, and it’s rare to find a space where I feel like I can be myself with the rest of my peers,” says Jean-Luc Rivera, 30. “You truly can bring your entire identity to Chaka Khan, without having to defend yourself or having to be afraid to be yourself.”
Although there’s no such thing as a typical Chaka Khan event, regulars compare it to the grandeur of a Beyoncé concert and the spectacle of Burning Man. The goal of dressing for Chaka Khan is to turn heads, such as by wearing a corset, leotard, harness, fairy wings, or a leather choker. Past events have featured tarot card readers, dunk tanks, and on one occasion, a patron who brought their own stripper pole. Chaka Khan’s vendors include a woman who sells healing crystals.
That space has had a significant impact on many who feel lucky to have experienced it. Rivera, who had only recently come out when he attended his first event, credits the community he found at Chaka Khan with becoming more confident in his body and his identity as a gay man. For Todd Mercer, who came out late in life, the party represents the community he wishes he had when he was younger. Before he moved to Bangkok for work, he regularly attended Chaka Khan events with his three adult sons, one of whom now DJs at its parties.
“It was the most unsegregated scene that I experienced in Atlanta,” says Mercer, 50. “There was no judgment. In Atlanta, you have to go to different parts of town to be in a gay scene, a bear scene, a straight scene. Everything’s so labeled, and that was the first [party] where I felt like there was no label for it.”
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Growing Pains
As Chaka Khan grew both in size and notoriety, its success attracted unwanted attention. The Fulton County Board of Health shut the party down in July 2022 over complaints that organizers did not have the proper permits to operate a bar in the parking lot. Joshua Fryer, 8Arm’s former general manager, says the city also took issue with the restaurant’s food service permit being listed under a deceased person’s name, as their former owner had died. Although organizers attempted to meet with the Board of Health to address these problems, they claim that officials were uncooperative. (The Board of Health did not respond to a request for comment.)
“The red tape and the hoops to jump through were insane,” says Fryer, 41. “They told us that we would have to apply for a special-use permit every single week that we had the party, which was a weekly party. We would literally have to submit an event application every single week.”
With no path forward, Chaka Khan was forced to leave 8Arm, holding its first event at Pullman Yards just 14 days after the shutdown. Because Pullman, a 27-acre industrial complex housed in a defunct train repair factory, is licensed as an entertainment district, Chaka Khan would have greater freedom to operate there. The new space also allowed a much larger volume of guests: A typical party at 8Arm drew around 500 attendees, whereas the first event at Pullman brought in 2,200 people.
This year marked Chaka Khan’s first full season at Pullman — which will come to a close with one last bash on Oct. 8 — but there have been several notable changes in the new space. The massive undertaking of creating a party for thousands of people forced de la Vega to host Chaka Khan just once a month, rather than every week, and she also began charging a cover for the first time.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
But even as de la Vega is now free to hoist her inflatable water slides in peace, she worries that Chaka Khan is changing too much. Although de la Vega instituted a pay-it-forward system at Pullman to ensure no one is turned away, she misses the intimacy of the smaller venue, where she knew everyone and they all understood the mission of the party. De la Vega recently had one of her vendors create a sign warning guests that ableism, fatphobia, and other forms of discriminatory behavior would not be tolerated, which she never felt the need to clarify at 8Arm.
“What Chaka Khan is now is maybe not what it’s going to be in the future,” she says. “Maybe it should be smaller, with half as many people and a more controlled experience for the people that are there. Once it gets so big, it’s hard to control the vibe.”
IF YOU GO
Chaka Khan Hacienda
5-10 p.m. Oct. 8. $15. Pratt Pullman District, 225 Rogers St. NE, Atlanta. On Instagram @chakakhanhaceinda, and Facebook at facebook.com/chakakhanhacienda.
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