August twenty-nineteen marked the opening of Kenni Javon’s and black queer creatives haven, otherwise known as Dick Appointment. The series of parties, ran from August to March, at H0L0, a club located in Ridgewood, Queens, became a sensation in establishing itself as the successor of events such as Freaknik, a rambunctious set of nineteen-nineties college parties celebrating Spring Break, and Paradise Garage, a nightclub in New York usually catering to queer underground scene. In March, the group planned for a Spring Fling, resembling Freaknik, but Coronavirus swept their momentum in the hopes of becoming the heart and soul of New York’s black underground. In this interview, Kenni Javon, founder of Dick Appointment, and Kadar Small, videographer and photographer of Dick Appointment, speaks on how the party dubbed by I-D Magazine as the “hookup that won’t disappoint”. This piece is one of four interviews focusing on how Coronavirus demolished New York’s nightclubs.
Interviewer: How would you describe the club scene before Dick Appointment came?
Kadar: I would say that my experience was very chill. I’ve always been the individual to be more lowkey.
Kenni: Dry. Well not seriously dry, but not giving what I wanted it to give or not black enough.
Interviewer: What parties would you frequent at?
Kadar: The Box [venue located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side]. Then I went to One Oak [venue also located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side]. I went to a lot of clubs inside the city in the Lower East Side, since I was in the FIT [Fashion Institute of Technology] area and live on campus in the Chelsea area.
Kenni: Papi Juice [a queer collective of latino and caribbean based parties, usually based in Brooklyn] and The Spectrum [a venue previously located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn].
Interview: What made you decide to create Dick Appointment?
Kenni: I wanted to do something for people of color, specifically black people. Try to give them the raunchy vibes of the raunchy music I grew up listening to.
Interviewer: How did you and Kadar/you and Kenni get in contact with each other?
Kadar: Kenni was my roommate. He invited me out to the parties because he was always the party-goer.
Kenni: He kinda [sic] raised me with him being my roommate.
Interviewer: How was the first Dick Appointment treated?
Kenni: I feel like the first party was kind of dry, but like the second party people caught onto it and they knew it was just a party.
Interviewer: Do you consider the I-D article [released in February 2020] about Dick Appointment was the moment you recognize success?
Kadar: Yeah, it’s always been underground. When the ID article came out, we knew that it came people in New York City would start to know about it more.
Kenni: It was accomplishment
Interviewer: In March 2020, Coronavirus came and originally y’all was supposed to do Spring Fling. What was your initial reaction?
Kadar: Initially I was just so stressed in quarantine for it’s happening, like in general only because I had certain jobs lined up and like now, like I feel like everybody realizes, nobody realized that it really was happening until it started affecting them personally.
Interviewer: Did you have anything planned out for Dick Appointment before Corona?
Kenni: We wanted to go to Miami, California, Atlanta, North Carolina. We have a large following outside of New York City so we thought we’ll take our followers to other places of the nation.
Interviewer: Since Covid, Dick Appointment have released four mixtapes and done Zoom parties. Do you personally feel like the community has treated the zoom parties the same way with the same energy that they treated the regular parties?
Kenni: Oh, no, not at all. I don’t even give the same energy that I give the regular apartments. So I wouldn’t expect it from others. To me personally I feel like Zoom parties are boring, like I probably won’t do another one.
Interviewer: What do you think Dick Appointment means to queer black people?
Kenni: It’s a place to express yourself.
Kadar: It really means a safe space and a space where they know they’re going to be fully comfortable where they’re going to be fully accepted and you don’t have to worry about anything.
Interviewer: What do you have planned for the future?
Kenni: Hopefully, when Covid is over we can get back to traveling. I should be releasing Dick Appointment merchandise within the next month, and we’re also doing a dinner series, and I’m also thinking about doing a Dick Appointment lottery party where only select people will be invited.
