D'Llisha Davis and Stephen Thomas at Brooklyn Bowl
In 2021, Nashfeels came blasting out of the gate with an R&B dance party masterminded by two experts in the art of the throwdown: longtime local music scene booster, 2 L’s on a Cloud founder and sometime Scene contributor D’Llisha Davis and her creative partner Stephen Thomas. Together they’ve developed Nashfeels into a must-attend party, selling out bigger and bigger rooms. They started out in the 500-capacity Mercy Lounge and graduated to the 1,000-plus-capacity Cannery Ballroom. When the Mercy complex shuttered, they moved over to Brooklyn Bowl, and they’ve been selling out that 1,200-capacity room, too.
Each Nashfeels has a theme, and the upcoming party on Jan. 7 takes a slight left turn into old-school Southern hip-hop. Called The South Got Something to Say, the event will feature some DJ legends of the Dirty South on the decks, including Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul and UGK’s C-Wiz. The plan is to start with contemporary Southern rap anthems and work backward in time as the night goes on, celebrating all that artists from Memphis, Atlanta, various Texas locales and more spots across the South have brought to hip-hop throughout the genre’s rich five-decade history. Just before Christmas, we caught up with Davis and Thomas for a brief phone chat.
What made you decide that keeping things regional and local was the way to focus a party?
D’Llisha Davis: We are two products of Nashville who’ve recognized the [shortage] of safe spaces when it comes to just going out and having a high-quality night of fun that you don’t have to go straight to Broadway for. We come from the nostalgia era of Nashville: the Second Avenue club scene, the Mix Factory, Karma Lounge — all these spaces where it was a deeply rooted local club scene.
Stephen Thomas: That’s an idea we’ve been sitting on for a year or two, even before COVID. … We had this idea, and we just think now is the perfect time for us to venture off into hip-hop. Because we usually do R&B with our Nashville party, but we’re going to venture off into hip-hop and just basically let people know we’re not a brand that’s stuck on one genre.
What has been the most challenging part of promoting a club night in the post-quarantine era?
DD: The growing pains have just been having to shift with buildings getting torn down, management changing. We started at Mercy Lounge and they were sold, so we could only be there for so long. And we went from Mercy Lounge to the Cannery Ballroom, which was downstairs and allowed that 1,000 capacity. Once everything closed, and then [the entertainment scene] having to also recover from COVID — it was hard. It was very tough. You don’t have people who typically let you book local parties in big rooms, because they don’t trust it. They don’t trust the sales, the bar revenue. And we actually connected with Brooklyn Bowl, and they just kind of gave us a chance.
ST: We’re in a sweet spot because people being cooped up in the house for two years [were] eager to get out and do something that’s safe and fun at the same time. We take pride in our events that there’s never incidents, to where people are getting rowdy or anything. So everybody’s coming out, having fun, being safe — that’s what we pride ourselves in.
What do you think has been the most rewarding thing about getting this party going?
ST: Just the positive feedback everybody is giving us. And us selling out. We sold out every show we’ve done. And we continue to grow. … We have a pretty good situation going on, and we’re proud of that. And we care about our people and the music and the entertainment, and just us coming together and having fun. Being safe.
DD: It’s beautiful to just have the support of the community. That’s always the hardest thing. Whether you’re an artist, a small business, you’ve got to have the support of your community. So to have these people trusting us every time we do it, and it sell out weeks in advance as if it was a big tour — that says a lot. … It’s just genuine fun that we are kind of pushing out to the city.
