Anwan “Big G” Glover, musical director of the Go-Go Museum and Cafe and lead vocalist for the Backyard Band, performs at the “For the Love of Go-Go” event at The Kennedy Center on Feb. 14.
Credit: Sam Johnson III, The Go-Go Museum
Saving the Signature Sound of Washington, DC
A new museum dedicated to Go-Go music comes with a message for both gentrifiers and lawmakers: #Don’tMuteDC
In April 2019, a cultural clash broke out in Washington, DC, that triggered a groundswell around preserving its native Black culture: On a fast-gentrifying block in the Shaw neighborhood, tenants of a new luxury condo building complained about music blaring from speakers at a neighboring retailer. The subject of the complaint was Go-Go, a percussive soul music culture indigenous to DC’s Black community, and the uproar was swift: Thousands marched and danced in street rallies under the banner #DontMuteDC.
Go-Go music, developed by young Black DC artists in the 1970s, had for decades been the music of the streets and nightlife across the city, which was until recently majority-Black. The hashtag #DontMuteDC became the moniker for a group that stood not just for the right of that store owner to play Go-Go, but for a broader agenda to stop the pricing out and pushing out of Black people. Among that movement’s eventual goals: To open a museum.