Welcome to the Go-Go

 

So some of us think we can escape or live down our Africanity.  You can put the dashiki in the closet, djembe in the closet.  But this music comes and gets your children.-  Melvin Deal on go-go music

So here is the secret: for all the newly minted change agents coming to the nation’s capitol, while you are moving to Official Washington, remember that there is DC around you.  While it is no longer Chocolate City statistically, its spirit protects you.   Its culture is deep and forever.  One facet is its own music: go-go. 

The first principle of Go- Go? it must be experienced live.  Get your cousin, your new neighbor, somebody from DC to take you to a go-go. Established to have live music compete with DJ’s who could spin uninterrupted dance music, go-go countered with long percussive bridges to extend the length of its songs.  Some go-go peeks its head out from a recorded song now and then.  The songs are fun to dance to.  Often they liven a party up, but you have to be in the room with – live- to really get it.    Even in South Africa, it’s infectious.

Amerie invigorated the movie “Hutch and had the hottest song that summer.  Salt and Pepa toured with Pleasure, an all girl go-go band to support their hit Shake Your Thing.  Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers broke ‘em off in Dan Akroyd's Doctor Detroit.   Curtis Blow chilled with Trouble Funk. And Stinky Dink put out the first DC go-go rap I remember, “One man, One hundred dollars and a One track mind.”  The story of my life. And yours too. 

Ju Ju rode with Grace Jones, Funky Ned with Maxwell, Ricky Wellman with Miles. Aretha Franklin with Rare Essence,  EU and the Butt in School Daze, most recently the Roots and Wale. Go-go mixes sell  on the street with Ludacris and Jay. The influence spreads and you have heard touches here and there, but you need to travel deep into black DC to feel it.  This summer, in some park, there will be a go-go band playing.

Noted black cultural curator, and Director of the African Heritage Dancers, Melvin Deal, once blamed the multiple violent incidents at go- go shows to the aggressive beats.  The most played beat is a Shango beat, Shango being the Santeria saint of aggression.   There was so much violence after go-gos that they became discouraged by law enforcement, if not  outlawed.   But they are still rockin’ from Kennedy street to the Kennedy Center.   Now, we have learned you have to tone the beats and the crowd down before turning the audience loose on the street, cause if you bang Shango beats for hours, aggression literally has a soundtrack. Which brings me back to my first admonition, get someone to take you to a go-go.  Somebody that knows fun from fight, and will get you out of there before it goes down. 

Go-go been around for a while now. There’s old school go-go and new school go-go. But now even the new school kids  - Junkyard Band, Backyard Band - are OGs in the game.
 

It’s a go-go tradition to call the hoodz and the peeps out, it’s called the roll call.  And I need to do one now. Marion Barry again and again, JuJu House, Mickey, Suga Bear, Big Tony, DJ Kool. Footz (RIP) Little Bennie. Jungle Boogie,  percussive uncle Asante, Mouse, White Boy, Reds, James Funk,  Funky Ned, and  Madness Connection, DDTP, We are One, Shooterz, All Days.    And the godfather: Chuck Brown.  Chuck is the Dali Lama of go-go.  He has parlayed his image into spokesperson for the DC  Lottery and Washington Post.  But you really got to ask him to get you going. Just join in the chant:
” Wind me up Chuck”.

So a note to the White House: It probably won’t be Desiree Rogers who brings DC’s roots music inside.  But watch out for Sasha and Malia. 

For all the DC homies who no longer live home, these videos are your stimulus package. Keep the go-go alive where you live now. And never forget – you can only get Wings with Mumbo Sauce here. We ain’t going nowhere.

Why Go-Go Never Made it Out of DC 

VeTalle Fusilier is a producer in Washington, DC. It's pronounced VEE-tal FEW-suh-LEER