It’s nearly official: On February 19, Mayor Muriel Bowser will sign the go-go bill, and she’s throwing a party to celebrate. The DC Council approved the measure unanimously for a second time on February 4 and sent it to Bowser’s office for review. Bowser will now sign the legislation, which designates go-go as the official music of the District. The event, at Culture House, is open to the public, and DJ Supa Dan and the Backyard Band are set to perform.
The signing is the culmination of a nearly year-long effort to preserve DC’s homegrown music genre. Following the Metro PCS controversy last April, musicians and local advocates took to the streets in protest using the hashtag #DontMuteDC. In June, Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie introduced the bill, which will also help create programming to preserve the genre and archive its history. “It’s important for people to not have to wonder or guess about how important go-go is to the District of Columbia,” McDuffie told the Washington Post at the time. At a hearing last fall, a long list of artists and activists testified before the Council about the genre’s significance and what it means to locals.
Bowser, too, has previously voiced her support for the #DontMuteDC movement.
You can read much more about go-go’s history in Washingtonian’s six-step guide.
Nathan Diller has also written for DCist, Vulture, and Bustle. On Twitter, he’s @nateclaydiller.
