How D.C. Killed Go-Go—and Why GoldLink Created Its Memorial
Adrian Fenty served as D.C.’s mayor from 2007 to 2011, a period that coincides with the At What Cost timeline. During his re-election bid, Fenty enlisted local artists to help reach black voters, using what the Washington City Paper referred to as “go-go politics.” It was a somewhat empty gesture from a man desperate to make up ground in the polls, but it spoke to go-go’s enduring impact. During his run, the homegrown culture of D.C.’s black residents bloomed for the last time.
GoldLink, born D’Anthony Carlos 23 years ago, cares about art’s value and what it can mean to a community. The value of his art is directly linked to his ability to see precisely where paths intersect: His early work connected several types of black music, and his more recent recordings cross-reference his nomadic upbringing. He spent his formative years bouncing between D.C., Maryland, and Virginia in changing neighborhoods. Even now, he doesn’t live more than 40 minutes away from the Chevy and Marshall Heights areas he grew up in. Being near his roots is important to him—especially since his music is about memorializing the city and the go-go scene as he remembers it.
“I grew up in a pivotal time period,” he says. “My father grew up in D.C., in the crack era. He was selling crack [in the early ‘90s] and all this other shit with his homies. Going to go-gos then was a little different—the punk rock scene was popping off and there was the drug scene. It was really segregated at that time.” The go-go scene GoldLink remembers was one of black inclusivity and warmth, where young people would congregate to frolic and party to jamming, seemingly endless live-band performances.
Since the 1970s, go-go music has been the pulse of the D.C. metropolitan area, born in the crime-ridden, lower-class neighborhoods of the Chocolate City. “Go-go is D.C.’s indigenous music,” says Howard University professor Natalie Hopkinson, author of the 2012 book Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of the Chocolate City. “It came about in the years after the Civil Rights Movement, when D.C. was devastated by the fires of the riots in 1968 that burned black communities. It’s the art form that emerged from the void created by white flight and black middle-class flight.”
Go-go is funk-based, jam-style soul music. It’s highly interactive and thus built primarily for live spaces. The songs are drum-heavy, highlighting congas and syncopated rhythms. Early iterations were groovy. More contemporary versions of go-go, pioneered as rap began dominating pop culture, use what’s called the bounce beat, adding roto-toms and timbales. Go-go frontmen, called lead mics or simply talkers, engage with the crowd like hypemen through call and response.
At the height of the music’s popularity, a go-go could range in size from anywhere between hundreds and thousands of people, held in a nightclub or college gymnasium or bar or sportsplex. Small lounge spots that catered to jazz and soul crowds would host the music; nightlife spaces with large dance halls used it to draw young people; concert venues like the Icon in Maryland billed go-go bands as must-see acts. Even the more popular clubs in the DMV—since-closed venues like Ibiza, Love, and Legend— were once homes for go-go. The music would boom out of storefronts and cars; its presence in the city was undeniable.
