Marcel Winatschek

Tiki Tabu

Theophilus London was performing at a party for Amuse, a Vice subsidiary, at Tiki Tabu on the Lower East Side. That was reason enough to pay attention. He was at that point where everything he made felt necessary, where you could feel him becoming something the moment couldn’t contain.

The party had that mix of people you only saw together in New York at that exact time: Virgil Abloh, Paloma Elsesser, people making things and not worried about categories. Mia Moretti was DJing. A film was screening somewhere. I’m not sure I was actually there—might have just read about it somewhere and filled in the rest with assumption.

What I know is the texture of those Lower East Side nights. A room with personality enough to feel like it mattered. People gathered around other people doing actual work, no strategy, just attention. That was the real luxury, before every moment became something to document and monetize.

Theophilus London kept going. Some of his music found people who needed it. Some was him thinking out loud, working through ideas in public. But there was always something alive in it—the same electricity you’d feel when the right people had gathered in a room.