6 CIAA questions for Mike Kitchen

Full Article

6 CIAA questions for Mike Kitchen

By Glenn Burkins – February 25, 2009

Font Size:

Share:

For Mike Kitchen, CIAA week is no party.

His company, Michael L. Kitchen & Associates LLC, aka "The Sol Kitchen," will host 10 events this week. That means long hours and big business for Kitchen, who holds degrees in English and graphic design.

Qcitymetro.com caught up with him for a fast Q&A:

Q. How many people do you think will attend a Sol Kitchen event this year during CIAA week?
Wow. We have events scheduled for ten venues. Most can hold at least a thousand people, and I’m prepared to say we are going to sell out each event. So you take the number of events I’m doing and multiply it by a thousand -- that pretty much gives you your answer.

Q. What’s a day like for you leading up to the tournament?
I’m pretty much meeting with venue owners, on conference calls with artists, on conference calls with my sponsors, making sure everything is straight, making sure the people who work with me at these venues know pretty much what’s going on. So, you’re dong all your checks and balances right now. You just want to make sure everything is fine so there won’t be a big mess the day of. I usually get up at 6 a.m., work out, come home and get some breakfast. I’ll probably go to bed, give or take, one or two in the morning. That can also be my normal day (LOL). I try to get in bed by midnight, but more than likely it will be 1 a.m.

Q. When do you start planning for CIAA?
Last year, I probably started talking to venues around October. Of course you’ve got to get with the owners, the managers and that kind of stuff. Then they have to think about it, blah, blah, blah. Then, usually around late November or early December, that’s when you find out if you have the spot or not.

Q. How has Charlotte’s party scene changed since the first CIAA tournament came here?
More people, number one. We have a different variety of parties going on. You have go-go music, you have old school, hip-hop, R&B. It’s a little bit of everything. This year, someone is doing a Brazilian theme party, someone is doing a New Orleans theme party, because Mardi Gras just ended. That’s the good thing about CIAA. You have so many different types of people coming to town. Just imagine, you have 200,000 people and every one is different, they like different things.

Q. How do you relax when it's over?
Sunday, I usually get with my friends I haven’t seen. We do brunch. We pretty much laugh at some of the things we’ve seen over the course of Wednesday through Saturday night. You can imagine with that many people here you see and hear some funny things.

Q. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?
It was the second year for CIAA in Charlotte. I was at a day party at Blue restaurant. It was probably 70 degrees outside, real nice weather. And this guy from Detroit, old school brother, had slick-down hair, had a fur coat, but it was waist length, shorts, a T-shirt and some designer-like felt shoes. And he thought he was the coolest thing in the world.

Now, you know where Blue is, that sidewalk? You’ve got all these black people out on the sidewalk having fun, music blaring. And this dud started walking down the sidewalk. And I’ll never forget, there was this guy, he was an Omega, and he stopped this guy and was like ‘My brother! Man, you gotta pimp it through the line, dog, you gotta pimp it through the line.’ And so the dude was like, ‘Nah, I’m good, I’m good.’ But the other guy was like, ‘No, you gotta pimp it through the line.”

So the whole sidewalk opened up like the Red Sea, and he walks through the line like it’s a Soul Train line. Everybody gave him hell. He turned red, shook his head and started laughing. He was laughing at himself. That’s was probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen at a CIAA event, and I’ve been going to CIAA off and on pretty much all my life.