Check out Mark, Chapter 6. The first few verses are about Jesus going to his hometown to do God’s work and being straight dissed. Hometown folks recognized him as someone they were familiar with, and thus questioned his wisdom and his work.
According to Mark 6:4, But Jesus went on to say to them: “A prophet is not unhonored except in his home territory and among his relatives and in his own house.”
Sound familiar, Go-Go?
In Go-Go’s home territory: RADIO
The radio representatives say that your recordings don’t sound good enough and that your music isn’t original. However, when you DO make radio-friendly original songs, they change their tune and say that they are obligated to play what the 12-year-old girls are requesting. Gatekeepers will play a game in order to maintain this illusion of power and the money that comes with it, often forgetting that their jobs are not lifetime appointments. The pitfalls of the entertainment industry can hit any of them at any time, as soon as people with even more money and influence decide that the gatekeepers are no longer needed in those roles. Radio station formats and personnel are changed all the time.
There are numerous examples of radio-friendly go-go songs and local music in other genres that could have EASILY blown up as ‘hits’ had local radio stations played them 20 times a day like they play national artists’ songs. One that hits close to this house is “DC Symphony 3“, a radio-friendly go-go tune that was submitted to local stations. What if the artists on this song had included nationally-known rappers out of Philly, New York, and New Jersey instead of locally-known rappers from DC, Maryland, and Virginia? Would local stations have pumped it up as a go-go song, impressed at go-go’s influence on artists in other cities, like when they were so happy with Salt-N-Pepa or Kid ‘N Play or Jill Scott or Beyonce?
And that is why we have our own go-go radio stations, of which we necessarily have a variety.
Among Go-Go’s relatives: ACADEMICS, ELITISTS, JOURNALISTS, ENTREPRENEURS, CULTURE VULTURES
Sidney Thomas called them out in 2013 for the exploitation of go-go music and culture in the form of an art gallery exhibit. In 2012, Stephen A. Crockett, Jr. put into words the uneasiness that many classic U Street hanger-outers felt about the new entertainment venues on what they used to call ‘Black Broadway’. Another way in which cultural ‘outsiders’ are making money off the cultural ‘insiders’ is through the privilege of having greater access to resources such as grants, educational opportunities, and elite social circles.
Go-Go musicians and indigenous experts have been called on over the years to be interviewed for documentaries, books, and mainstream media articles about go-go music and DC culture. While they have been named and credited for the wealth of information they provide to media organizations, arts organizations, students, professors, and miscellaneous entrepreneurs of education and art, they have the anguish of watching these go-go ‘outsiders’ assume the role of go-go experts and make money off of information and connections that they did not earn organically. Such exploitation has been common among academics and journalists worldwide who have made common practice of treating communities of culture as subjects on which to perform research–then using the results to maintain the oppression of the groups under study. Oppression is maintained, among other ways, because the researcher makes career strides and monetary gains as an “expert” on these people or this culture, while the people who gave up the information–their cultural capital–likely remain in the same financial and/or social situation.
Another close-to-this-heart example is the current TMOTTRadio Going Live Campaign, in which go-go expert and Godfather of Go-Go Media Kato Hammond is using an online fundraiser to help the number one trusted source of information about go-go (TMOTTGoGo.com) be able to provide his community with a more interactive educational experience of their culture. Go-Go is about that call-and-response, and Kato not only wants to make sure TMOTTRadio listeners can call into shows in real time, but he wants community members AND THEIR CHILDREN to have shows on the station. The goal is only $7,000, and the names of all contributors are listed on the fundraiser page. Missing are the names of the many people who have built careers, connections, and financial profitability off of HIS information and HIS media outlets.
In Go-Go’s own house: FEARS OF PEERS
Go-Go has its own lil’ crankin’ pocket of community, culture, and economy, which can feel mighty big (and empty) to the people who depend on it for survival. But, if the community members are having their livelihoods uprooted, their reputations tarnished because of criminals, and their art either criticized by gatekeepers or picked at by vultures, why shouldn’t they be fearful of another community member’s social and financial advances? It probably feels like there isn’t enough upward mobility to go around. Meanwhile, actions by some folks in go-go’s home territory and among go-go’s relatives show that the go-go community is seen as one big unit. Unfortunately, by being trapped together and kept in the dark, some community members, rightfully feeling dehumanized, turn to calling each other ‘crabs in a barrel’ and start fighting over recognition and imagined dollars received.
Still got your Bible, Go-Go? Turn to Isaiah 41:10 and read it right on through to the end. It was written that your haters are nonexistent. There is only God, and NO ONE’s works can compare. Will you choose fear or faith? Hatred toward your perceived competitors in go-go, or faith that God has plenty for you all?
Who Would Dare Protect the Prophet?
Some say that the Prince George’s County “Dance Hall Law, CB-18” unfairly targets and shuts down go-gos. This opinion has been intelligently debated in the community. Faced with the anger and frustration of the loved ones of victims of violent crimes, the anger and frustration of the go-go community that NEEDS safe places for recreation and cultural expression, and the anger and frustration of the artists and entrepreneurs whose livelihoods depend on go-go, what should local lawmakers do? They certainly were at Chuck’s and Benny’s funerals, and they never hesitate to do the go-go dance when it will benefit them politically.
If they think that people will get shot, stabbed, or beat up specifically because a go-go is being held by community artists, then they should protect go-gos under local or federal hate crime laws. Some would have us believe that there are individuals who feel the need to fight, injure, and kill, simply because they hear a funky conga beat. If that is the case, then the lawmakers need to protect us from those who target us for their violent crimes. Almost every legitimate source on go-go, from TMOTTGoGo Magazine to The Maverick Room to The Beat refers to go-go attendance as a spiritual experience. Well… what’s up with lawmakers serving and protecting God’s groove?
Bottom line… we’re more than just one community under a groove, gettin’ down just for the funk of it. Every go-go is a community meeting at which the people give thanks for the interaction, the freedom, and the peace of it. Psalms 133:1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.