Inside a black brick building in Anacostia is the story of the funk beats and calls and responses that molded the District’s official music genre.

Located on the corner of U Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, the Go-Go Museum & Cafe chronicles the history of the genre, which blends Afro-Latino percussion, funk, jazz, hip-hop and R&B. The style also features cowbells and conga drums backing a call and response interaction between performer and their audience.

The museum, which opened its doors Feb. 19, incorporates live shows and interactive exhibits to educate city locals and tourists on go-go’s cultural legacy in D.C.

Museum founder Ronald Moten said go-go music rose to prominence in the District in the 1970s after the “late, great” guitarist Chuck Brown pioneered the genre. In 2020, the D.C. Council designated go-go the official music of D.C., considering the genre as one that “fully captures the cultural and artistic expressions of the District,” according to the designating act.

“Go-go music is the heartbeat of Washington, D.C.,” Moten said.

He said the museum gives visitors an opportunity to learn about the cultural history of Black people in the District, once called the “Chocolate City,” since it was the United States’ first majority-Black city in 1957. 

“I believe that if children know their history and their culture and where they come from, they will value it more,” Moten said.

The museum packs about 16 exhibits in its narrow space. Photos, timelines and signs with information plaster the walls, discussing the genre’s origins in 1976 when Brown molded the genre as the “Go-Go Godfather.” Animated go-go figures like Sugar Bear of Experience Unlimited were featured on screens, comparing go-go with other styles, like hip hop and jazz. Classic records like “A Salt with a Deadly Pepa” by Salt-N-Peppa and “Livin’ Large” by EU line the walls in a showcase exhibit.

In the downstairs space in the “Don’t Mute DC!” exhibit, panels about the cultural movement against gentrification in D.C. cover the walls. The exhibit focuses on the story of a Shaw Metro PCS shop owner who was told by a neighboring resident to shut off his go-go music outside of his store in 2019. After community outrage and support from the T-Mobile chief executive, the business owner’s beats turned back on. 

Down a flight of stairs, the stage at the back of the room features a drum set and red bongo drums, providing a space for future performers.

Museum visitor Crystina Harris, a D.C. native, said she grew up on go-go music, listening to it during her daily 7 a.m. commutes to school. She said she was born in the early 2000s and is only familiar with go-go artists from that era, so she was interested in learning about go-go’s deep-rooted history in D.C.

She said the museum helped her see the “progress” of the Black community in the District, while areas like Georgia Avenue that held cultural value have battled gentrification.

“That showed me a lot how D.C. was being gentrified and the culture was kind of changing, and for us to have a staple place like this museum, that kind of gives me hope that it’s still Chocolate City, like we have some stuff that’s important to D.C. in D.C.,” Harris said.

Harris said when she was going to college in North Carolina, people did not know about go-go music, joking that it sounded like “pots and pans” banging together. She said the newer generation’s interest in go-go is “dying down,” but the museum provides a place to grow interest and foster education among younger visitors. 

“It’s like a pinnacle of hope for me,” Harris said.

Gayle Wald, a GW professor of American studies with a focus in African American cultural history, said the genre is about “bringing people together” through methods like call and response, with a person in the band leading the audience to sing along.

Wald said D.C. locals anticipated go-go was going to extend beyond the District, but it ended up remaining a phenomenon that was particular to the local area. She said listeners often compare the genre to hip hop because the styles were born in the same time period. 

“Go-go is a music that thrives in live performance and community,” Wald said. 

Wald said students new to the area might not realize it, but go-go is present throughout the District, whether it be the music itself or the distinctive beats.

“I used to tell students ‘When you’re walking around Dupont Circle and you see people repurposing tubs that have a specific sonority, they make a certain kind of sound,” Wald said. “And you see them drumming on the corner or having percussion ensembles just people on the corner doing that, that’s go-go.’”

Wald said go-go has been at the center of social “conflict,” with groups battling over who owns certain spaces and who’s allowed to play loud music in those areas, like the dispute chronicled in the “Don’t Mute D.C.” exhibit. She said having a museum devoted to the genre uplifts those traditionally oppressed groups to tell their own story.

“I think probably this is part of the go-go museum, the desire to really claim the history proudly of go-go but also people in the go-go community document their own history and document this,” she said.