The Go-Go Museum & Café, the world’s only collection dedicated to the celebration, study and preservation of all things go-go, opens Wednesday in its birthplace, Washington, D.C.
For the uninitiated, the genre is a syncopated, drum-driven style of funk. Its distinctive sound is heavy on percussion instruments such as congas and cowbells, as well as brass horns. Go-go is often played live, where its exuberant rhythms soar. “It is a powerful expression of joy,” said Natalie Hopkinson, the museum’s chief curator, who wrote her Ph.D. dissertation about go-go. “It is an art form.”
While several bands played roles in early prototypes of the music, Chuck Brown, the “Godfather of Go-Go,” is widely credited with creating the genre in the 1970s. During a club performance with his band, The Soul Searchers, Brown reportedly had the percussion section play continuously between songs. Meanwhile, he engaged the audience in lively call and response. That groove — which goes and goes — became go-go.
A half-century later, go-go is still going. In 2020, it was designated the official music of Washington, D.C. Over the years, artists such as Brown, Rare Essence and Trouble Funk have appeared on NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concert series. Go-Go acts have also appeared at Pharrell Williams’s Something in the Water festival in Virginia, at the Kennedy Center and beyond.