D.C. celebrates three years with 'Go-go' as official music of nation's capital

WASHINGTON (WJLA) — They call it “Go-go” music because once its starts, it just goes and goes and goes. Some say it’s a genre of funk, but everyone agrees it was created in the 1970s by the late Chuck Brown.

The Martin Luther King Library was alive Friday with go-go as a band called Crank Caviar filled the auditorium with sound, next door to an exhibit hall that featured and exhibit on D.C.’s go-go history.

Go-go was named the city’s official music by Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council three years ago this week.

There’s no go-go without D.C.,” said LaToya Foster, director of D.C. Cable, “And No D.C. with go-go.

She was part of a ceremony in the exhibit hall Friday as groups came together to celebrate go-go.

Ron Moten, one of the co-founders of #Don'tMuteDC and who is currently constructing a D.C. go-go museum, took it further.

“When people get off the trains at Union Station, there should be a go-go band playing,” he said.

The celebrations, and the official recognition of go-go, came after a particular flashpoint four years ago in the capital city's modern history.

A Metro PCS store that played go-go regularly from loudspeakers outside its storefront – and that sold go-go CDs and tapes in its back room – was forced to shut off the music after a neighbor in a nearby, luxury, high-rise apartment building complained to the store's parent company.

The incident lit a powderkeg in D.C.'s Black community, activists from which began a campaign called "Don't Mute D.C." that focused around go-go and other music and cultural expresions in the city as gentrification continues to eclipse the long-time Black culture of the city.

The movement gained the support of the mayor and council. Not only was Go-Go back on the loud speakers, but the D.C. government voted Go-Go D.C.’s official music.

If you hear it, it’s distinctive for the percussion, drums and bongos. African? Latin? Potentially mixed influences. And the beat can be added to almost any genre of music: jazz, blues, the late Chuck Brown even recorded Richard Strauss’s "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" to a go-go beat.

Anwan Glover was an actor on the TV Show “The Wire” and he’s lead singer of D.C.’s Backyard Band.

He says of Go-Go, “It hits you in the heart. The beat, you know what I mean, the Go-Go beat. Just like Chuck Brown said, ‘it don’t mean a thing, if you don’t got the Go-Go swing.’ It’s right there for you. But you got to come and see it."