How D.C. Go-Go Helped Shape Hip Hop's Golden Era

[LevelUp]

All three music genres are parts of bigger sub cultures created in the 1970s by disenfranchised and frustrated youth searching for a means of expression. As a music genre Rap music took off into the stratosphere and almost 5 decades after its birth in the modern day it shows no signs of slowing down, while Punk Rock barely penetrated popular culture outside of a few bands gaining some national exposure in the 1980’s and an Alvin & The Chipmunks Punk Rock parody album.

That isn’t a slight to Punk Rock, the music was far too angry and rebellious to be transformed into commercial music for the masses. While Go-Go has been sampled heavily by major rap artists, featured in movies and the subject of documentaries, it has still remained a regional music and movement for the more than 4 decades that its been in existence


One of Go-Go’s architects is the band Trouble Funk. Trouble Funk leader Big Tony credits the late Chuck Brown as the Father of Go-Go. “Chuck Brown's early records weren’t Go-Go. Chuck was doin’ Go-Go but he wasn’t recording it. Trouble Funk was the first to actually record Go-Go. 'Bustin’ Loose' (by Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers) was a top 40 funk record with Go-Go ingredients. 'E Flat Boogie' (by Trouble Funk) and 'Bustin’ Loose' were the first recordings with Go-Go in them. The very first Go-Go recording ever released was Straight Up Funk Go-Go Style by Trouble Funk. People don’t acknowledge that.”

“The only real way to record Go-Go is live. That’s what Go-Go is about. It has to be recorded live. Even if you record in the studio you have to have a crowd! You have to have an audience. We had a controlled environment, but we kept it live," explained Big Tony .

Even though many D.J.’s outside of the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area may have been unaware of Go-Go as a music and movement, they knew what was funky. The percussive breakdowns of records like “Knock Him Out Sugar Ray” by E.U., “Bustin’ Loose” by Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers and “Pump Me Up” by Trouble Funk were already being mixed and manipulated by D.J.’s before the title Go-Go was applied to them.


Since the early 1980’s there have been Go-Go and Rap collaborations. Trouble Funk’s first big record was 1980’s “Pump Me Up” which they actually rapped on. “Pump Me Up” became a favorite amongst D.J.’s to create routines with and it became a breakbeat in Hip Hop. Grandmaster Mele Mel remade “Pump Me Up” in 1985 with his new faction of The Furious 5.

When the first recorded Rap artists began to tour nationally, they noticed that the local D.C. bands would always blow them away on stage when they played in the city, because they played Go-Go which the D.C. crowd absolutely demanded. Kurtis Blow’s first Go-Go collaboration was with E.U. (Experience Unlimited) and it was called “Party Time?” from the 1983 album of the same name. Kurtis would collaborate with Trouble Funk for “I’m Chillin’” in 1986 as well. Blow says that his E.U. collaboration was based on being out performed by Go-Go bands when he played the Capital Centre with them in the early 1980’s.


More at link

How D.C. Go-Go Helped Shape Hip Hop's Golden Era

D.C.'s Go-Go sound has many similarities to Hip-Hop. Check out how Go-Go has always been connected to Hip-Hop.

rockthebells.com

 

[Art Barr]

Go go is house and eventually any rap group or artist rjat used disco house or go fo. Usually souled't out hiphop culture.
or had souled't out hiphop culture. Plus had known since the newschool way of thought. It was a no no too tho.



Art Barr

 

[LevelUp]

Go go is house and eventually any rap group or artist rjat used disco house or go fo. Usually souled't out hiphop culture.
or had souled't out hiphop culture. Plus had known since the newschool way of thought. It was a no no too tho.



Art Barr

Rep

 

[Taadow]

I read this article, and juuuuust when I thought it was gonna zig one way it zagged.

Whenever people talk about how DC wasn’t a factor in the rap scene, I think about the Go-Go influence.
and you can see that influence all through:

1. New Jack Swing Era. Yes this article does talk about bands from that time like Rare Essence, Junkyard, and EU,
But I was thinking about stuff like Redhead Kingpin in the FBI, Chill Rob G, Teddy Riley, and that kinda stuff.
Like…the DMV had it’s hand in rap, but that area was always more R&B ish.

(tangent) like L.A. We had Gangsta Rap, but we were always R&B first. Even at the same time this article is referencing,
we was moreso listening to Freestyle House like Egyptian Lover and Dream Team at the club instead of hardcore hip-hop.
Even though I wasn’t over there, I feel like this is the same thing that happened to Go-Go. It got eclipsed by what was the
more…universal type of Rap. (end tangent)

2. Bad Boy. When they got to Ron Lawrence I thought “okay here we go…”
But not just him - Chucky Thompson was also a Hitman, and his beats was way go-go ish, even though he was more of an R&B producer.
”Dead Wrong” absolutely could’ve been the back beat of a go-go song. Not to mention Puffy spending so much time there,
he basically bought the flavor back with him.

3. Timbaland and Neptunes. They took go-go elements to the future, imo.

I was kinda surprised they didn’t make mention of these

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Post I made in another thread:

https://www.thecoli.com/threads/why-do-people-in-d-c-pretend-go-go-is-good.1047775/post-56492416

There is no New Orlean Bounce without DC Go Go. There is no Nelly Hot in Heere, Herby Luvbug, Beyonce Crazy in Love, Amerie 1 thing,

There would be no "New Jack Swing" either w/o GoGo. That bouncy swing/swung 16th pattern that became the foundation of NJS came right out of GoGo music (informed by Jazz)

.
.



Miami Bass wouldn't exist w/o it either


Go-Go Bites: Country Cousins

Taking a different approach to this series, I wanted to look at the less obvious influence of go-go, rather than direct and blatant biting. Yesterday I ran an old interview with Miami bass legend and 2 Live Crew godfather Luther Campbell on my own site. At some point our conversation shifted to D.C. and its music:


[W]hen I was a rough kid my mom sent me to stay in DC, I stayed in Oxon Hill with my brother... Man, Rare Essence, Chuck Brown, that was my thing. I used to go to a lot of the go-go shows at The Armory and when they used to have it at the Cap Center I’d be there. That’s really where I got a lot of call and response from. I was a DJ and I did call and response, but I never [knew] how to apply it on a record. So when I did spend my time up there, I would go to these shows and I would see Chuck Brown up there and Rare Essence and I would see the battles. Because back then, they would be battling and shyt, they would be getting down, it’d be like battle of the bands. So I heard that and I kind of applied a lot of that into me as an artist. Keeping the party started, coming up with different call and responses. I learned a lot from go-go music.

This is not an uncommon sentiment. I've dedicated a large chunk of my life to phone conversations with old school Southern hip-hop artists and it's surprising how many of them, often tipped off by a 202 area code, start reminiscing about go-go music and whatever tenuous connections led them to it in the '80s. New Orleans bounce godfather DJ Jimi mentioned discovering the genre while living in P.G. County, Geto Boys DJ Ready Red (a N.J. transplant who had his biggest impact in Houston) used to cop go-go 12-inches through an uncle in Silver Spring. (Another short term Geto Boy, Big Mike, once reminisced on "jamming that Trouble Funk" at New Orleans block parties with "Southern Thang.")


Quiet as kept, those early D.C. jams went big throughout the South. While not technically being hip-hop, go-go was in a sense one of the earliest branches of "regional rap" to pop up. And in a lot of ways it provided the blueprint for what would the South would turn into an international industry in the years that followed—-the heavy call-and-response factor that Luke mentions, the local specificity of it all, the aspect of black-owned labels. Echos of these trends could be heard throughout bounce, bass, and crunk music. And sure, similar things were happening in the early days of New York hip-hop as well, but that as that city began to move toward a more lyrical and cerebral focus, it was D.C.'s formula that helped keep the party going in the rest of the country.

Go-Go Bites: Country Cousins

 

[2 Up 2 Down]

Jay-Z straight up jacked Overnight Scenario from Rare Essence