C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23 , 2021
Doug E. Fresh Salutes the Godfa-
ther of Go-Go,” a culmination of
decades spent working intimately
with go-go musicians onstage and
in the studio. Made with counsel
from former Rare Essence mem-
ber Donnell Floyd, the album con-
tains musical contributions from
the group Team Familiar, as well
as a few go-go players who have
backed DMV rap star Wale.
And while Fresh understands
the potential bittersweetness ofway. With go-go, “the loop is hyp-
notic and it locks you in. It’s hard
to get out of it,” Fresh says. “It says,
‘Don’t leave, don’t leave! Where
you going?’ ” Then Fresh performs
some metaphysics of his own,
beatboxing an astonishingly crisp
go-go beat over the phone line as if
he has a tiny set of conga drums
stashed between his teeth.
Fresh’s dream song eventually
bloomed into an entire album,
“This One’s for Chuck Brown:such last year — “so to have this
come along so shortly after that,
it’s giving everybody more inspi-
ration to really create,” Johnson
says. “And we will be submitting
every year.”
Big Chess, bandleader of the
Big Chess DC Music Group,
knows his band’s reputation isn’t
as big as Rare Essence’s, but that
hasn’t stopped him from dream-
ing big about Tuesday’s nominee
announcement. Everything about
his submission, “Go-Go Love,”
seems extra-large. The album is a
sprawling 33 tracks, and it in-
cludes contributions from more
than 40 musicians, including pro-
duction partner Jacques Johnson,
drummer Willie Howell, former
Prince trombonist Greg Boyer
and many more. For Big Chess,
this is a big deal.
“Go-go music is an experience,”
Big Chess says, “which is why it’s
been so difficult to capture on a
recording. You have to go to it to
see what it is. But if you’ve gone
back to the continent of Africa like
I have, and you study the cadences
and the rhythms there, you feel
the same energy and the same
vibrations.... So with [the Gram-
mys], it validates our experience
in this diaspora. It shines a light
on a group of people who, know-
ingly or unknowingly, are con-
nected to where they come from.”
[email protected]the first go-go Grammy going to a
hip-hop icon, his heart is beating
in the right place. “I’m doing it to
honor Chuck Brown, and I’m do-
ing it to honor all the go-go artists
who need to be acknowledged,” he
says. “If I’m able to open up a door
or create a conversation that will
expand this music... then we did
something good!”
Back in the DMV, a mix of go-go
legends and newer groups man-
aged to hit the academy’s dead-
line, too — but for Rare Essence, it
was close. The group hustled to
assemble its aptly titled “The Offi-
cial Sounds of the Capital” and
submitted the recording as Rare
Essence and Friends, perhaps to
highlight a song featuring Snoop
Dogg, a rap superstar currently
holding the record for artists with
the most Grammy nominations
without a win — 17 in all. A win
here would allow Grammy voters
to correct two oversights with one
trophy.
But Rare Essence bandleader
Andre “Whiteboy” Johnson is
more concerned with how this all
shakes out back home. “The
Grammys are a worldwide thing,
and this helps to really legitimize
go-go,” he says. “We’ve always
known it as the unofficial sound
of D.C., and now we know it as the
official sound of Washington,
D.C.” — Mayor Muriel E. Bowser
signed an act to designate it asWall, Ledisi, Lalah Hathaway —
all these people started speaking
up for go-go,” Kokayi says. “Every-
body was like, ‘We know this mu-
sic. We’ve heard it [in D.C.] when
we’ve been out on the road and we
love it.’ ”
Like a go-go song, everything
started coming together organi-
cally. And unlike a go-go song, it
happened fast. Academy trustees
ratified the proposal in May, the
category language was changed
and the window for entries
opened and closed in July. On
Tuesday, the Recording Academy
will announce its slate of nomi-
nees for the Jan. 31 awards show
— and if any go-go albums make
the cut, it’s because the artists
made haste.
Harlem rap pioneer Doug E.
Fresh had a head start. By the time
the eligibility news reached him,
he’d already begun work on a
tribute album dedicated to go-go’s
creator. “The idea came to me in a
dream to write a song about
Chuck Brown,” Fresh explains
over the phone. “I didn’t under-
stand why. I just started writing
because that’s the same way I
wrote ‘The Show,’” his signature
hit from 1985.
Fresh met Brown that same
year. The two shared a bill at the
Capital Centre, where Fresh re-
members feeling go-go’s magne-
tism in an almost metaphysicaland an awards and nominations
committee member, decided to
answer a call for new business by
tossing up a Hail Mary: Instead of
drafting a formal proposal, he
suggested that go-go simply be
added to the best regional roots
album category where it could
compete against other musical
traditions from communities
across the land: zydeco, Hawai-
ian, Cajun, Native American, pol-
ka and the like. That way, instead
of underdogging it against the
starriest names in R&B — like E.U.
did in 1988, like Chuck Brown did
in 2010 — go-go music could be
recognized on Grammy night on
its own terms.
“Go-go is not R&B. It’s not hip-
hop. It’s not funk. It contains
elements of those musics, but it’s
its own art form,” Kokayi says. “So
I just put it out on the table like,
‘Look, I’m not asking for a new
category. I’m not asking for any of
that. I just want to add go-go to
regional roots... because there’s
a whole community working on
this music on the daily, but when
it’s time for us to submit our
music, there’s nowhere for us to
go.”
More than a few celebrity acad-
emy members immediately piped
up in support of the idea. “PJ
Morton, Yolanda Adams, Paul
GO-GO FROM C1
Competing in a new category, go-go looks for newfound mojo at t he Grammys
DERREL R. TODDMARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POSTTOP: Kokayi says, “Go-go is not R&B. It’s not hip-hop. It’s not funk.... It’s its own art form.” ABOVE: Doug E. Fresh has recorded a
tribute album to Chuck Brown, a.k.a. the Godfather of Go-Go.
BY HAU CHUThe Internet can be an alienat-
ing place. But to understand why
a hundred or so people spent
three hours jumping and mosh-
ing on the top floor of Pie Shop,
you kind of need to have faith that
it can also be a beautiful place.
Set aside the noise and the
attention sinkholes and the
creepy algorithms, and the Inter-
net can be the easiest place to seek
refuge from a sometimes crush-
ing reality. It’s also a place where
you can discover a long lineage of
wonderful weirdos and outcasts
who know just how you feel.
That’s emo. Whatever precon-
ceptions you have about mall
teens or jet black hair swoops,
emo’s power comes from the com-
fort of hearing someone singing
along to the uncomfortable emo-
tions and feelings in your head.
On Sunday, three bands that
made their names in the online
emo world, Glass Beach, Proper
and Home is Where, crossed the
threshold into the realm of IRL,playing a sold-out show on Sun-
day night at Pie Shop.
Glass Beach is the sort of en-
semble that sounds as eclectic as
the influences it can reel off. The
quartet shuffles through jazz and
synth-prog-rock and what sound
like sweeping video game scores.
The Los Angeles rockers have
developed a cultish online follow-
ing, and it translated in-person
when fans were eager to sway and
shout along to infectious stand-
outs off “The First Glass Beach
Album,” including “BedroomCommunity.”
Proper was the most straight-
forward rockers of the night. The
trio crafts an immensely likable
and lyrically knotty brand of emo
that is at its strongest when singer
Erik Garlington gets personal.
The members of Proper are all
Black, and in a genre where alien-
ation is already top of mind, lyrics
about navigating through white-
ness stands out. Reflecting on the
online outpouring over the
deaths of Sandra Bland and Elijah
McClain, on the song “Don’t,”Garlington asks: “If I was next,
how long would you protest for
me?”
Home Is Where played perhaps
the most riveting set of the night.
The quartet’s exhilarating brand
of emo, primarily from their stel-
lar album “I Became Birds,”
blends the fiery rage of hardcore
with the oddball existentialism of
indie recluses Neutral Milk Hotel.
The latter felt especially present
in the Florida group’s use of sing-
ing saw and its surreal lyrics
about confusion around who weare and what all this is.
How do you ease the alienation
of life online? Maybe there’s a clue
in how Home is Where vocalist
Brandon Macdonald hopped into
the crowd during the anthemic
singalong of “Sewn Together
From the Membrane of the Great
Sea Cucumber” and put an arm
around fans who were enthusias-
tically shouting, “I wanna pet
every puppy I see!” The emo kids
who discovered a world online
had found each other in real life.
[email protected]MUSIC REVIEWGlass Beach, Proper and Home Is Where: A three-layer cake of emo at Pie Shop
JOEY TOBIN
Glass BeachMILLA BELANICH
ProperHOME IS WHERE
Home Is Where