Hip-hop and go-go music are instrumental in both storytelling and memorializing the social and cultural histories of urban spaces because they provide spaces for Black Americans to express and commemorate, while abandoned in a predominantly white and occupied system. Natalie Hopkinson, author of Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City states that “Black music is not just entertainment. It is a conversation across time and space. The same ways of speaking appear and reappear throughout the African diaspora throughout time, geography, and context (Hopkinson, 48).” The various forms of music that appear throughout existed in that time frame, then they “die out” but reappear again through “new combinations of the same components,” whether it be through the rhythms,
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They use hip-hop and go-go to reclaim the spaces because so many of them and the spaces that they inhabit have been abused, and not necessarily by them. The structures of the systems that they live in such as in Washington, D.C. the first Chocolate City, are complicated and messy especially for Black individuals who are established and have lived experiences. Therefore, hip-hop and go-go music are forms of engagement to tackle with these problems and concepts, while also providing some form of escapism. Moreover, go-go in the late ninety-sixty’s formation (and the Chuck Brown, the Godfather of go-go music contributions) as the uprising in D.C. occurred allowed people to express themselves while dancing, doing call and response, and going along with the musicians upon a terrible situation occurring in the backdrop (Hopkinson). Which, still today very much remains as a part of the social and cultural aspect in Washington because of its history, memorializing. Even though it may appear in different forms that younger generations experiment with or Pastors construct with “gospel
They use hip-hop and go-go to reclaim the spaces because so many of them and the spaces that they inhabit have been abused, and not necessarily by them. The structures of the systems that they live in such as in Washington, D.C. the first Chocolate City, are complicated and messy especially for Black individuals who are established and have lived experiences. Therefore, hip-hop and go-go music are forms of engagement to tackle with these problems and concepts, while also providing some form of escapism. Moreover, go-go in the late ninety-sixty’s formation (and the Chuck Brown, the Godfather of go-go music contributions) as the uprising in D.C. occurred allowed people to express themselves while dancing, doing call and response, and going along with the musicians upon a terrible situation occurring in the backdrop (Hopkinson). Which, still today very much remains as a part of the social and cultural aspect in Washington because of its history, memorializing. Even though it may appear in different forms that younger generations experiment with or Pastors construct with “gospel