WASHINGTON — On a recent summer day outside Dunbar High School, Jamiya and Jamiyan Simmons reminisced about early-morning Sunday rituals. The 17-year-old twins would wake up to go-go classics like UCB’s “Sexy Lady” and clean the house with the music blasting from their grandmother’s stereo.
For nearly 50 years, go-go has been more than music for Black Washingtonians — it’s a cultural identity, encompassing sound, fashion, and the community gatherings that define the city’s Black history. But decades of stigmatization and criminalization shaped a new generation that identifies more with hip-hop and rap than with go-go.
Although the sisters appreciate the music, go-go activists say it’s been hard to keep younger generations engaged in the homegrown genre.
Their friend, Taylor Young, agreed as the friends hung out in Northwest Washington. “I just feel like more people should listen to it and be more open to it,” said Young, 18. “It should be bigger than what it is.”
They’re not totally convinced that younger generations aren’t listening to go-go music, but admit that their generation needs to be exposed more to a musical tradition that has helped define the city. Their experiences reflect a broader challenge for go-go supporters seeking to keep a cultural tradition relevant for a new generation.
As gentrification and overpolicing reshape the neighborhoods where go-go was born, the music risks losing its next generation. Now educators and producers are working to reconnect young people like the Simmons sisters and Young with the sound — and what it means for Black Washington.
The Simmons twins and Young have seen their fellow Gen Z’ers engage with go-go mostly at the margins — through remixes, TikTok trends, and drum covers of popular rap and R&B songs. Like New Orleans-style bounce, the tradition has long absorbed Billboard hits, recasting songs like Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” into something made for dancing.
“Young people are really catching on to this new evolution of go-go, which I think is hyper important, because they have found a new niche in go-go,” said Tone P, a native Southwest Washingtonian and music producer.
The push to attract younger audiences
Go-go grew out of the funk and soul scenes of the 1960s and ’70s, forming its distinctive sound by the mid-’70s. At its core is a syncopated rhythm called “the pocket” — a groove built on congas, timbales, and cowbells that pulls audiences in and turns performances into communal events.
For Tone P, go-go was a constant throughout his childhood in the ’90s and 2000s.
At 39, he still remembers listening to the genre in the back of his parents’ car, in the living room and throughout the house, leaving him with no choice but to digest the sound.
Now, he’s turned the playlist from his childhood into a career, working as a producer with mainstream artists such as Wale and Lizzo, and others, to bring the D.C. sound to listeners outside the city.
His passion for the genre led him to start his nonprofit, Go-Go Global, which has worked with D.C. Public Schools and community members to teach the professional side of making go-go; From the creative process to working with labels and showing students what it takes to create and master a professional sound, he’s giving the once hypervigilant genre a clean slate when working with scholars.
“I’ve noticed ever since me and Wale introduced rap into the area professionally, and he became like a thing, rap was taking over D.C. more than go-go,” Tone P said. He added, “You don’t want to go out [to the schools] trying to ram something down their throats, which is why having go-go bands closer to their age makes a lot of sense.”
The producer and songwriter said it’s important for the youth in Washington to see band members who look closer in age to them, so the music feels like it’s in reach, relatable, and attainable. For older artists and sounds outside the bounce beat and genre-bending, the students often call it “old head music,” he said.
Reflecting on those who inspired him, including his favorite boy band, UCB, which he often samples and works with, he gravitates toward them because the members were close to his age.
How scapegoating go-go impacted its reach
In 2020, Tone P worked alongside community leaders to make go-go the official sound of Washington after thousands of people rallied behind a Metro PCS store that’s played the music for decades.
Before the wave of support, there were heavy restrictions on when and where go-go could be played. City officials and surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia claimed the music incited violence and crime. Curfews and restrictions on serving alcohol at events were implemented.
Groups like UCB were unfairly blamed for violence that erupted at some shows, Tone P said.
“It’s not really the bands,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the crowds, and that’s sometimes a culture issue that we got to address amongst ourselves in our community.”
Natalie Hopkinson, who covered the genre for The Washington Post earlier in her career, called the restrictions the “Go-Go Law,” when children couldn’t be at a go-go after certain hours but were allowed to be present in other spaces, such as the Kennedy Center.
She’s also a co-curator of the Go-Go Museum and Cafe and a professor at American University.
“That was just one of many ways officials scapegoated or targeted go-go for other social problems,” she said.
In 2019, gentrifiers tried to silence the corner at Seventh and Florida Avenue, where a Metro PCS storefront run by Donald Campbell also sold physical CDs. For decades, the store has blasted go-go rhythms, often drawing people along the strip to dance. The store sits in the central part of Washington, just minutes away from the historic U Street area, formerly known as Black Hollywood, and Howard University.
The community rallied behind him to start the #Don’tMuteDC movement to stop MetroPCS’s owner, T-Mobile, from forcing Campbell to stop playing the music. Thousands of signatures from not just Washington, but all over the country rallied behind the store.
Years later, the storefront’s go-go continues on. Now, a dispensary called The Crank Corner is at the front, and the phone store is at the back. Inside, the dispensary has posters of Washington go-go bands and flyers of go-go events.
“Either they like it, or they don’t, and either it makes sense to them,” or it doesn’t, Hopkinson said. “We’re at a moment where it’s just everything is just different, like culture is just different, culturally different.”
Although go-go isn’t criminalized anymore, you can’t make younger generations embrace it, Hopkinson said.
Back at Dunbar High, the Simmons twins said their peers are coming around — including other non-Black students discovering go-go through TikTok, a stark contrast to older generations who learned it at home from parents.
Over the years, young people have created modern TikTok dances to beats older than they are. People beyond Washington are blending their own sounds with bounce beats, similar to the way Washingtonians cover pop songs to go-go beats.
As social media captures the younger generation’s attention, the sound continues to evolve. Producers are exploring other avenues such as go-go, rock and go-go, and jazz blends, creating a new wave.
“I think it’s really going to popularize and globalize and professionalize the genre beyond what anybody can see right now,” Tone P said. “They’re really mixing bounce beat with rock, and I love it, and I’m a part of it.”
