Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City

Go-go is the conga drumandndash;inflected black popular music that emerged in Washington, D.C., during the 1970s. The guitarist Chuck Brown, the andquot;Godfather of Go-Go,andquot; 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 1980s, 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. In the 1990s, the middle class that had left the city for the suburbs in the postwar years began to return. Gentrification drove up property values and pushed go-go into D.C.'s suburbs. The Chocolate City is in decline, but its heart, D.C.'s distinctive go-go musical culture, continues to beat. On any given night, there's live go-go in the D.C. metro area.

andquot;Black Washington, D.C., has a famously rich history and culture. Natalie Hopkinson has an established reputation as one of the most sophisticated commentators on contemporary black culture in the capital city. Go-Go Live is not only a fascinating account of a musical culture, but also a social and cultural history of black Washington in the postandndash;civil rights era.andquot;andmdash;Mark Anthony Neal, author of New Black Man

"Natalie Hopkinson knows the music, the heartbeat, and the people of Washington well, but Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City is much more than a book about D.C.'s indigenous sound. It is a vital, lively, and ultimately inspiring look at the evolution of an American city."—George Pelecanos

andquot;Go-Go Live is a terrific and important piece of work. Music, race, and the city are three key pivot points of our society, and Natalie Hopkinson pulls them together in a unique and powerful way. I have long adored Washington, D.C.'s go-go music. This book helped me understand the history of the city and the ways that it reflects the whole experience of race and culture in our society. It puts music front and center in the analysis of our urban experience, something which has been too long in coming.andquot;andmdash;Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

"Go-Go Live is not just a fantastic read, but THE definitive study of D.C.'s most overlooked and unheralded art form. Natalie Hopkinson captures the soul of the city."—Dana Flor, codirector of The Nine Lives of Marion Barry

andldquo;Part history of, part elegy for, andlsquo;the displacement of black communities and a slow death of the Chocolate City,andrsquo; the text is supplemented by a rich photo insert documenting both dance floor and street. . . . Her assessment of a local phenomenon offers a glimpse of a culture off the mainstreamandrsquo;s radar.andrdquo;

andquot;Taking us into the little-studied terrain of go-go, the cousin of hip-hop born and bred in Washington, D.C.andcedil; Natalie Hopkinson reveals go-go as a lens for seeing, in stark colors, how the economy, politics, and especially the drug trade have traduced black communities around the world.andquot;andmdash;Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

“There has been a lack of good writing about a cultural force as important as go-go in a major city. Hopkinson definitely fills in some of that hole and Go-Go Live is definitely good writing. . . . Hopkinson contributes a valuable piece to the cultural history of a changing city.” - Michael Rugel, Culturemob

andldquo;Hopkinson writes with great, sometimes astonishing, insight, and this is a work that is sorely needed. Recommended for readers interested in gentrification, nongovernmental DC, and the music that animates its culture.andrdquo;

andldquo;[A] fascinating new book about go-go, D.C., and race in urban America. . . . Hopkinsonandrsquo;s book is also a plaint of ambivalent hopefulness that this post-Chocolate City, Barack Obama-era Washington, D.C., can begin to overcome that separate-and-unequal racial division still at the heart of America.andrdquo;

andquot;Natalie Hopkinsonand#39;s Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City demonstrates the essential connections between culture and community in an American city. For generations now, go-go music in Washington D.C. has not only given the authentic, nonfederal parts of that city its musical milestones, but it hasandmdash;in the voice of so many great lead talkersandmdash;marked the civic and political time. From Chuck Brown forward, go-go has proven resilient and real. They say you canand#39;t understand this music unless you are there in the club, in the moment, but this book comes close.andquot;

andldquo;. . . Go-Go Live is a good read for DC residents and music lovers in general - if for no other reason than its subject matter. In the 40 year history of go-go music this is only the second book ever written about the genre. The first being the seminal The Beat by Charles Stephenson and Kip Lornell. Hopefully books like The Beat and Go-Go Live will inspire the next generation of go-go fans to record and document their own experiences about their city and its amazing indigenous music.andrdquo;

andldquo;Go-Go Live is a compelling, methodologically bold ethnographic history of a city and artistic form that have both received too little scholarly attention. And in the wake of Chuck Brownandrsquo;s death, its content and style can be appreciated by academics and go-go fans alike.andrdquo;

andldquo;[I]tandrsquo;s a shame that [Chuck] Brown wasnandrsquo;t around to read the love, knowledge and understanding go-go, and black D.C. by extension, receive in Natalie Hopkinsonandrsquo;s Go-Go Live. . . . As Hopkinson makes clear, the life of urban black America involves issues that are far larger than music, but music is how black folk often work through them.andrdquo;

andldquo;Hopkinson shows the strength of the Black community in the eyes of its eventual displacement. Go-Go Live isnandrsquo;t just the history of a genre of Black music; itandrsquo;s the history of Black people in a certain region of America. Itandrsquo;s the history of Black America itself.andrdquo;

andldquo;Hopkinsonand#39;s book is part requiem for a culture that she sees being castand#160;aside by a changing DC, and part appreciation of its unlikely survival and evolution. Her interviewees are full of rich stories. . . .andrdquo;

andldquo;With the election of Barack Obama and the return of the white middle class to the urban core, Hopkinsonandrsquo;s beloved Chocolate City and the music it spawned may be a thing of the past. Go-Go Live is thus not just a work of scholarship but an eloquent piece of cultural partisanship, an elegy, a counter-narrative, a love letter.andrdquo;

andldquo;No written work could fully capture the excitement of go-go culture, but Hopkinson comes close. . . . Go-Go Live provides a loving profile of this unique musical culture. By tying go-go to the tumultuous history of one of the USandrsquo;s most important cities, Hopkinsonandrsquo;s work will undoubtedly become an important resource to students of music, race, and US history.andrdquo;

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 70s 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.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the flight of the middle class left majority-black cities in its wake. Products of segregation, Chocolate Cities such as Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Detroit, and Newark, were also hotbeds of African American cultural innovation. Since 2000, the demographic trend has reversed; urban gentrification has led to the decline of the Chocolate City. In Go-Go Live, Natalie Hopkinson recounts the social history of black Washington through its go-go music scene, the cultural manifestation of the Chocolate City. A Washington-area phenomenon born in the mid-1970s, go-go is a form of black popular music distinguished by its beat of conga drums and endless layers of percussion. It is dance party, call-and-response music in which the sounds of New Orleans brass bands and jazz funerals, Caribbean Carnivals, and Nigerian juju music can be heard. Unlike hip-hop, which emerged at the same time, go-go resisted corporate cooptation and commercialization. Washington's go-go culture thrives on an extended network of local, almost exclusively black-owned businesses, which sell locally designed urbanwear, recordings of live performances, and concert tickets. With its D.C.-based fashion, slang, and dance, go-go remains the most visible manifestation of the Washington area’s black youth culture, even though gentrification has pushed many blacks out of the capital. Maryland's Prince Georges County is the new hub of the D.C.-area go-go.