In 2019, a tenant of a luxury apartment building in the Shaw neighborhood in Washington, D.C., complained of constant noise emanating from a MetroPCS storefront nearby.
The noise flowing from the speakers outside the store was the sound of go-go music, an outgrowth of funk music born in the nation’s capital. When T-Mobile informed store owner Donald Campbell that he would need to turn off the music due to a potential lawsuit over the sounds that he has played since the ’90s, a throng of residents and supporters organized protests on the corner to demand go-go returned to Georgia and Florida avenues.
Eventually, T-Mobile acquiesced. Campbell was allowed to play his beloved music outside of his store again. Utilizing the hashtag #DontMuteDC, an online petition and the steady beat of go-go, the protesters showed the world that the sound of the district would never be silenced.
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With the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the highly-anticipated Go-Go Museum and Café in D.C.’s historic Anacostia neighborhood Monday, the museum’s creators have cemented go-go’s place in the lineage of Black liberation music — from Komfa in Guyana, Candomblé in Brazil, and Santería in Cuba.
“Black people, throughout history and across time and space, have used our trauma of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade of forced displacement. There’s certain things that happen to Black people wherever we are, whether it’s in Cuba or Brazil or Jamaica or anywhere,” said Dr. Natalie Hopkinson, the museum’s chief curator and author of “Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City.”
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“Go-go music is just one of these manifestations of that Afro-modern existence that we have, that we’ve turned our pain into power,” she said.
The “This Is Go-Go” exhibit inside of the Go-Go Museum and Café in Anacostia. Phil Lewis/HuffPost
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The museum is the product of community activist and go-go promoter Ronald Moten, who said he came up with the idea in 2009. “This looks like the old D.C. in many ways,” Moten explained. “We want to be thriving, prosperous, and engaging for all people. I think we have a chance to do that.”
The museum, which spans more than 8,000 square feet, is interactive. Inside, there are photos and artifacts from other go-go legends, like Junk Yard Band, DJ Kool, E.U., Gregory “Sugarbear” Elliot, Rare Essence, and more. There’s a café, lead by prominent chef Angela Bethea, a stage for live performances, a recording studio, holograms of go-go legends, and more.
As soon as visitors walk into the museum, they are greeted by a large photo of the late guitarist Chuck Brown, the “godfather of go-go,” who is perhaps best known for his 1979 hit track “Bustin’ Loose” with The Soul Searchers.
But go-go emerged from the 1968 civil unrest in the nation’s capital following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The “1968 uprisings scarred the landscape of D.C.’s neighborhoods and left an economic void that go-go filled,” Hopkinson said, noting she made this argument in her book.
By the 1980s, go-go was undoubtedly a musical force with live events in backyards and clubs across the nation’s capital. In the ’90s and the early aughts, however, go-go saw a crackdown due to authorities who linked the genre to violence, nearly snuffing it out of existence. In February 2020, go-go became the official music of the district after Mayor Muriel Bowser signed a bill that aimed to preserve the genre.
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“We have over 80 museums in Washington, D.C., but until today, we had one missing,” Bowser told the large crowd of go-go supporters who attended the museum’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “Now we can say when people come to visit our city and when young people are talking about our history and culture, that we have a Go-Go Museum.”
It is the only museum in the district dedicated to the history of go-go music.
A crowd gathers to hear the Junk Yard Band and the Back Yard Band at the official ribbon-cutting ceremony of the city’s Go-Go Museum and Café on Monday in Washington, D.C. Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images
An exhibit dedicated to the #DontMuteDC movement “shows how we very specifically took the pain of that gentrifier on that corner, God bless her, who sparked this movement because that’s why we have a museum,” Hopkinson continued.
Locals are excited about the Go-Go Museum’s opening, particularly in the Anacostia neighborhood, a predominantly Black area of D.C. that has long been underfunded.
“Truth be told, a lot of people don’t want to come over here. As you start to get closer and closer to Anacostia Station, you start to see what changes,” said Yvette Tariq, a local historian and D.C. native who manages the DC Decades Instagram page with her husband, Mustafa Tariq. “Once you have a museum pop up, then you’ll see that people will start to respect it more. But we have always respected this side of town.”
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The Go-Go Museum also pays homage to the genre’s roots. While the polyrhythmic musical genre was popularized by Chuck Brown in the 1970s, there are several exhibits within the museum that describe go-go’s West African roots and its relationship to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. “Among the only popular Black music genres that has not been colonized,” an exhibit read.
An interactive exhibit featuring a hologram of Go-Go legend Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliott, lead vocalist of the band E.U., is one of the features of the Go-Go Museum and Café. Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images
At the heart of the museum is community. The museum’s curators hope that the space will someday include music programming for local youth. With the opening of the Go-Go Museum and Cafe, Hopkinson believes that the genre will never be silenced in the district again.
“We are constantly being displaced. We are constantly being criminalized. We are constantly being muted. Our voices are muted. Our bodies are muted. Our music is muted. Now that the Go-Go Museum is here, go-go music will never be muted again,” Hopkinson proudly told the crowd of supporters in Anacostia who had come to celebrate the music they love.
“We have a home forever.”