MUSIC-USA: Go-Go Still Going Strong

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

WASHINGTON, Nov 26 1996 (IPS) - Almost two decades ago, the citizens of Washington, D.C., were convinced that the beat-happy music they called “go-go” would become the biggest dance sensation in the country.

Violence in black dance clubs, which closed many of Washington’s top venues, and the rise of rap music spawned in New York put an end to those hopes. But go-go — part Jamaican, part James Brown, part African and entirely Washingtonian — remains alive as the pounding rhythm of the nation’s capital, even after the hopes of big money and fame have faded away.

The genre’s main practitioners, like the fiftyish Chuck Brown, bandleader of the Soul Searchers, are still putting out songs bearing the trademark go-go beat: a churning, rolling groove powered by two drummers and several assorted percussionists.

The go-go groove crests and falls, in a manner similar to West African drumming or the rhythm of the Brazilian group Timbalada. Along the way, African-derived instruments like the cowbell clang along as distinctive elements, while other musicians play several different types of melodies — jazz, reggae, rap or rock — over the thunderous beat.

Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers — who coined perhaps the theme song to the entire genre, the capitalist lament ‘We Need Some Money’ — are still plugging away at the fringes of stardom, playing at the remaining Washington clubs regularly.

And Brown still commands attention with his bluesy wail, whether he is revamping songs by Duke Ellington — the jazz master who also came from Washington — or growling the plaintive ‘We Need Some Money’: “I wanna lay it all on the line/ A dollar bill is a friend of mine.” (The Soul Searchers, meanwhile, chant in a materialist singsong that has also been picked up by rap: “MasterCard and Visa, American Express/ I ain’t got nothing ‘gainst credit cards, but the cash is the best.”)

Meanwhile, other go-go acts, like the rap-influenced Rare Essence, have also survived the violence of the past few years, when increasing poverty in black South-East and North-East Washington sparked the highest murder rate in the country, and forced many go-go clubs to close.

Rare Essence remains popular on the touring circuit with new rap tunes that share the tough macho stance of New York and California rappers, while still focusing foremost on the dance-obsessed go-go sound, as on their recent hit ‘Work the Walls’, which mixes the trademark driving beat with a Tarzan wail.

In the mid-1980s, those catchy elements seemed to be pushing the musicians into stardom, with such Washington favourites as Trouble Funk and Experience Unlimited (EU) recording dozens of local hits. D.C. entrepreneur Maxx Kidd signed many of the hottest groups to his own label, TTED Records, and promoted a 1985 film about the genre, called ‘Good to Go’ — which starred folk singer Art Garfunkel as a Washington reporter.

One EU song, ‘Da Butt’ (about shaking that particular body part), became a nationwide hit and inspired a dance trend (focused, of course, on wiggling butts) after it appeared in Spike Lee’s 1988 film ‘School Daze’.

Other artists appropriated the go-go sound, from disco diva Grace Jones (who put out an entire go-go album, ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ on Island Records) to the top Jamaican rhythm section, bassist Robbie Shakespeare and bassist Sly Dunbar. Many rap and go- go hybrids also emerged, including the witty feminist rap pairing New York’s Salt ‘n Pepa with EU, ‘Shake Your Thang’.

But the music dried up in the early part of this decade, swept out by the New York-based hip hop movement and the inability of groups like Trouble Funk to find nationwide success even after softening their sound. Club closures still go on: one of the last main venues, Club Ibex, is now under threat to lose its liquor license as Washingtonians objected to the rise in crime when clubgoers flock there.

Many of those group’s best moments, however, have been brought back, with an old Trouble Funk record, ‘Trouble Funk Live’, released this month by the Rhino label. That record, which captures the group’s early eighties peak, features not songs so much as improvisations, with each of their catchy, chant-based grooves — such as their early hits ‘Let’s Get Small’ and ‘Drop the Bomb’ — riding the crest of the go-go beat.

Amid the cynicism of 1996, where Washington continues to be governed by televised cocaine user Mayor Marion Barry while its limited self-governance is chipped away by the Republican Congress, the optimism of groups like Trouble Funk shines through on the older songs. “We’re still smoking on the go-go scene,” they sang then. Although the scene isn’t so big anymore, the grooves are still smoking.