The Shocking and True Real Romeo Cologne Story!

(From Cover Story of Feb 24 2011 issue Creative Loafing Atlanta) By Chad RadfordPhotos Joeff Davis It's Saturday night at the Clermont Lounge, Atlanta's long-standing den of depravity and the setting for one of the city's requisite dance parties. The air is thick with smoke and hedonism as the eclectic wall-to-wall crowd of middle-of-the-road bros in Polo shirts, sorority girls in white pants, and shirtless gay black men writhes to the rhythm of Michael Jackson's "Working Day and Night." In the bar's far corner two half-naked strippers — a sister act named Mercedes and Lexus — bump and grind to the music. Behind the DJ booth stands a lanky, unassuming dude with a close-cropped afro, DJ Quasi Mandisco, bobbing his head to the music and adjusting the sound levels with the steady hands of a surgeon. He's the protégé, the opening DJ who's there to get the place moving before his mentor arrives. It's just about 1:30 a.m. when he leans into the microphone to announce that the man of the hour has entered the building: "Ladies and gentleman," he says with a low rumble, "Romeo Cologne." A figure steps out of the shadows, dressed to the nines in a vintage black suit with a frilly white scarf tied around his neck and a black Italian fedora cocked over his right eye. Taking his place behind the booth, he points a finger to the heavens and drops the needle on James Brown's "Too Funky in Here." The room explodes with energy.