Go-Go Museum: Preserving DC's iconic music history, culture

Yahoo

11-02-2025

WASHINGTON () — When you live in D.C., the national monuments serve as your backdrop but the soundtrack is unmistakably Go-Go – the music born, bred and booming in the nation's capital.
'Go-Go is the heart-beating soul of our city. Go-Go is the voice of our city,' said Ron Moten, the founder of the . 'This museum is bringing people from outside of our city to learn more about the superpower of Go-Go – because it's our superpower.'
The museum's official grand opening is Feb. 19, but Moten gave DC News Now a sneak peek earlier in the month, during which he explained how central Go-Go is to the District and the people who live there.
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'We use it for activism, for fighting for causes. We use it to teach. We use it for health. We use it for many reasons,' Moten shared.
Every inch of the space is used to tell a very complex story.
'The history of Go-Go is tied to the history of Washington, D.C.,' explained Dr. Natalie Hopkinson, the museum's curator and American University professor.
It started with Chuck Brown, who gave birth to the distinctly district sound in the mid-70s. Then, it became even more popular by the late 80s when EU's 'Da Butt' was featured in Spike Lee's 'School Daze.'
That is when Hopkinson says Go-Go was criminalized.
'Kids loved it. They flocked to clubs and that coincided with the time when D.C. was considered the murder capital. And there was a lot of problems around gun violence, around addiction, around violence,' she said. 'But instead of dealing with the hard thing, like, 'okay, we have a gun problem or we have a drug problem,' they decided that we had a Go-Go problem.'
Hopkinson said police crackdowns shut down nightclubs and ended up cutting off an entire generation from this deeply rooted, indigenous D.C. culture.
'But Go-Go, thankfully, was very resilient. It had to go underground. It had to really protect itself and fight to survive,' she said.
'I knew the only way that we can save it was with a museum,' Moten said.
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He began to organize, holding a radio telethon to raise money. Then, in 2020, he got the city involved.
Moten said D.C. kickstarted the project, funding 80% of building the museum. The rest was privately raised to create a fully interactive space.
Some of the museum's highlights include a graffiti tag wall, where you can send your work to be printed onto a t-shirt; a hologram of Big G that uses AI technology, letting you chat with the musician; a recording studio; a stage; and more.
It houses hundreds of artifacts, including the pen D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser used to sign legislation in 2019, making Go-Go the official music of Washington, D.C.
'Go-Go has a rich history of keeping this city alive when nobody wanted to be here,' Mosten said. 'So I think it's due for the city to give back to Go-Go and make sure that we preserve the history and culture that's here today.'
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