Go-Go Live

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Description

Go-go is an upbeat, funky Black popular music from Washington, D.C. with a history as long as that of house or hip-hop. Natalie Hopkinson is the Media and Culture Critic for The Root, with access to clubs, producers, and artists, and is therefore well-placed to tell the story of the music from the 70's to the present. With the regentrification of the District, more of the Black population and the go-go industry have moved to the Maryland suburbs. In Go-Go Live, Hopkinson gives a critical, inside account of the scene and how it survives in a changing city.

The guitarist Chuck Brown, the "Godfather of Go-Go," created the music by mixing sounds borrowed from church and the blues with the funk and flavor that he picked up playing for a local Latino band. Born in the inner city, amid the charred ruins of the 1968 race riots, go-go generated a distinct culture and an economy of independent, almost exclusively black-owned businesses that sold tickets to shows and recordings of live go-gos. At the peak of its popularity, in the 1980's, go-go could be heard around the capital every night of the week, on college campuses and in crumbling historic theaters, hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, backyards, and city parks.

Go-Go Live is a social history of black Washington told through its go-go music and culture. Encompassing dance moves, nightclubs, and fashion, as well as the voices of artists, fans, business owners, and politicians, Natalie Hopkinson's Washington-based narrative reflects the broader history of race in urban America in the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first.

Museum Story

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the nation's largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting, and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. Established by an Act of Congress in 2003, it is the culmination of decades of efforts to establish a national museum that promotes and highlights the contributions of African Americans.