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The pic-ops and the press-briefings. The rapid-fire West Wing dialogue. Hand-shakes and moment in the Rose Garden. Soaring marble memorials and imposing public buildings. They’re familiar snapshots that help form an abiding impression of Washington as the definitive seat of power, authority and privilege.

But not far beyond the White House and the Capitol building and the Stars and Stripes flapping in the breeze lies a very confronting place. The real Washington DC – and it’s anything but privileged and powerful.

It is predominantly black, burdened by deprivation, crushed by crime and drugs and feels utterly abandoned by political leadership.

You won’t hear too many refrains of America the Beautiful here. You might hear gun-fire and arguments. But you’ll certainly hear Go-Go. It’s an unmistakable beat thumping away in the corners and spaces of the badlands that’s lifting hearts and rousing spirits.

"You can’t even come in this city and not want to hear it because it’s talked about so much. It’s a part of this city. We breathe it. We bleed it. It’s a part of us." CHI ALI GO-GO BAND LEADER

Just as the blues emerged from the African-American experience in the Mississippi delta, soul and Motown scored a new assertiveness in the ‘60s and hip-hop and rap marked the anger and frustration of more recent times, Go-Go is the unique and authentic sound of the national capital.

"You know they call DC the chocolate city and go-go is the soundtrack of the chocolate city.
It’s the heartbeat of the city; it is the fabric of the culture of the people who live here."
NATALIE HOPKINSON AUTHOR

But Go-Go has a menacing side. It’s become allied with violence, drugs and criminality and is being forced further and further underground as authorities crack-down on the Go-Go community.

The ABC’s North America Correspondent Michael Brissenden ventures where very few outsiders dare to tread to examine the dynamics of this raucous and riotous music movement that in many ways has become the unofficial soundtrack for African Americans waiting and hoping for a Black President to deliver on his promise of change.

Brissenden spends time deep inside the Go-Go world and elsewhere meets with a black giant in this community - former mayor Marion Barry – infamous for his starring role in a FBI drugs sting in the ‘80s but worshipped by locals as the man who galvanised, organised and inspired them 20 years before Barack Obama. Barry personifies the flaws and failures of his community but also has an enduring hope for beneficial change.

It’s an eye-opening program that shatters many of the myths of the most powerful place on earth.

Deep South people

Music

00:00

BRISSENDEN: Music defines place in America.

00:19

Man singing

Singing

00:21

BRISSENDEN: And black music also defines times and circumstance,

00:29

Mississippi Delta

all the way from the Mississippi Delta…

00:35

LA

BRISSENDEN: …through the violent streets of East Los Angeles…

00:37

NY

Music

00:41

BRISSENDEN: …and on to the big time –

00:47

Music

00:49

BRISSENDEN: – and while you might have heard some of that, chances are you haven't heard this.

00:52

Benny performs in club

Music/singing

00:58

BRISSENDEN: You’re listening to an obscure artist called "Little Benny" playing an obscure brand of music – Go-Go. A big sound that plays in a confined space --

01:07

the black neighbourhoods of Washington DC.

01:19

Go-Go neons

Music

01:24

NATALIE HOPKINSON: [Author] They call DC "Chocolate City" and Go-Go is the sound track of the Chocolate City. It's the heartbeat of the city. It is the fabric of the culture of people who live here. Different

01:27

Natalie. Super:
NATALIE HOPKINSON author

political administrations might come and go, but for the folks who stay here and who live here, year after year, generation after generation,

01:48

Go-Go Club Scene

Go-Go is part of their identity. It's the musical expression of their identity.

01:56

Music

02:01

BRISSENDEN: For outsiders, Go-Go may not sound very distinctive at all.

02:15

Music

02:20

BRISSENDEN: It's difficult to pick the difference between it and a cacophony of other contemporary black music, but there are differences and even the tin-eared among Washington’s African-American community hear them.

02:28

CHI ALI: [Go-Go star] You can’t even come in this city and not want to hear it because it’s talked about so much.

02:45

Ali. Super:
CHI ALI
Go-Go star

It's a part of this city. We breathe it. We bleed it. It's a part of us.

02:51

Chi Ali performs at club

Music

02:56

BRISSENDEN: In Chi Ali’s Go-Go band the basic ingredients are a line of conga drums and grim experiences to feed the stories in the lyrics.

02:58

Ali’s neighbourhood streets

CHI ALI: This was just a bad neighbourhood to live in. Those times in the ‘80s to now, it really damaged

03:14

Ali on street

us as a people and our community and for me as an outlet, I used the music.

03:21

Ali’s neighbourhood streets

As far as crack-cocaine, I used to sell anywhere from an eighth to a K out here a day, and this building right here, I used to sell hand to hand. No bags. I used to break it off the block.

03:30

Neighbourhood traffic. Fire truck siren

BRISSENDEN: Like many in the Go-Go scene and those who follow it, Chi Ali grew up in and participated in a drug addled, crime ridden world just a bus ride from the White House.

03:49

Police cars with flashing sirens

CHI ALI: I’ve seen so much death around here that death doesn’t faze me. We used to

04:05

Ali. Super:
CHI ALI
Go-Go star

hear gunshots and walk out and see bodies smoking on the ground, steaming from the bullets. We used to see people get their head shot off,

04:09

Ali’s neighbourhood streets

so I mean I went through that, the youth that’s coming up now, they went through that because the stage is becoming worse and it was very violent out here, very.

04:17

Capitol Hill at night

Music

04:27

BRISSENDEN: This, of course, is the Washington most of the world recognises, a city of monuments and symbols of political power. For the first time there’s a black man at the centre of it, but in the neighbourhoods not far from here, on the other side of power, the change they’ve been craving still hasn’t come.

04:31

Driving through black neighbourhoods

The fact is the black side of the capital is a part of Washington most white residents rarely experience from outside their cars. It’s poor, it’s urban and at times it’s frighteningly violent.

04:55

Go-Go mural

For decades, the driving percussion of Go-Go has provided the backbeat in this tough environment but some also believe Go-Go is part of the problem.

05:10

Dissolve to American Flag. Night

MARION BARRY: [Former Mayor, Washington DC] America is a violent country. We were founded on violence,

05:23

Barry. Super:
Marion Barry Former Mayor, Washington DC

and so violence permeates the psyche and those who are most moved by it happen to be low income people.

05:28

Police. Night

BRISSENDEN: Turf wars like this are a common occurrence in a community awash with guns and drugs. Often the gang violence ricochets off the streets and into the clubs, and vice versa.

05:40

MARION BARRY: We’ve had to close down nightclubs because they’ve got too violent --

05:54

Barry

outside mostly, because people had beefs inside.

06:00

Barry on street, talking with residents

BRISSENDEN: Before Barack Obama came to town, this was the black man who galvanised, mobilised and inspired his community, the deeply flawed and controversial former mayor, Marion Barry.

06:15

MARION BARRY: You cannot allow violence to take over.

06:35

Barry

Right down in southwest two people were killed outside of the club. The club wasn’t responsible for that, but who do you hold responsible? It happened. The altercation started inside,

06:39

People on street

and so the government in Prince George’s country right next to us, the government in DC has been forced by the political pressure and the pressure of the people to close it down. I don’t agree with that, but that’s where we are.

06:52

Guys in car

CHI ALI: I think we all have a common problem and instead of the politicians blaming music or the music blaming the politicians,

07:05

Ali

I think that we should join forces and use this music as a tool to curb the violence in the city.

07:14

Clubs/Police

Music

07:20

BRISSENDEN: But violence and Go-Go dance hand in hand. At the clubs we went to during our assignment, there was a heavy police presence. It didn’t do much to dampen the enthusiasm for the music but the authentic soundtrack of the real Washington is finding it more and more difficult to find a home. It’s being forced further and further away from the heart of town.

07:26

NATALIE HOPKINSON: It actually makes my head spin how quickly it’s happening. It’s pushing out Go-Go from the heart of where it began. It’s almost as if

08:02

Natalie. Super:
NATALIE HOPKINSON author

Go-Go, which had done so much to bring life to these places, is.... their services are no longer needed and they’re just getting pushed out.

08:12

Performer in club

They’re people who are seen as problems, people who are seen as disposable. You just push them away and get them out of sight.

08:20

View of Capitol building from Natalie’s attic

BRISSENDEN: In her attic overlooking the Capitol building,

08:41

Natalie working on book

Natalie Hopkinson is writing the final draft of her book on the musical life of the Chocolate City. What’s happening to Go-Go, she says, is a metaphor for the pain and the pressures experienced by much of the black heart of the city.

08:45

Natalie leaves building and sits on stoop with book

The music has become an easy target.

NATALIE HOPKINSON: The DC police have this program called the Go-Go report and the signal is that we’re taking care of that Go-Go problem for you. They’re openly doing surveillance of this musical culture

08:59

Natalie

and there’s no real consequence for doing that in this city, because it is so marginalised and it is so associated with people that either the city doesn’t see or they don’t want to see.

09:19

Washington south-east

Music

09:34

BRISSENDEN: This marginalisation of the black underclass is common enough in other big American cities, but this city is the prism through which the nation sees its politics. Surely, Washington should lead the way on race relations. Instead, it lags, and the wounds that won’t heal were opened in dramatic fashion years ago.

09:40

B&W Clips. Riots.
Super: 1968

NATALIE HOPKINSON: After Martin Luther King was assassination in 1968, DC had one of the worst riots in the country. DC had considerable uprising and in many parts, burned.

10:05

Natalie

The parts that were sort of the segregated black communities burned to a crisp.

10:30

B&W Clips. Fire

BRISSENDEN: Much of the damage was done in the area around U and 14th streets, the heart of the black business and entertainment districts. The anger smouldered in these streets for decades and the ashes and the rubble of defiance forged a distinctive cultural phenomenon.

NATALIE HOPKINSON: What Go-Go did was it

10:35

Natalie

went into those crevices and brought new life to them.

11:04

B&W Clip

Go-Go music filled all those spaces and played a really important role in just literally bringing life to places where there was none.

11:07

People on street

BRISSENDEN: Over the thirty years since, Go-Go grew, but very little else did. For the average African American here, life has been one step forward and one or two steps back.

11:20

Barry. Super:
Marion Barry Former Mayor, Washington DC

MARION BARRY: I’m proud of our country, no question about that. I’m proud of our city, but I’m not happy with this divide and it’s getting worse.

11:38

Archival. Marion Barry

BRISSENDEN: Through the sixties and seventies, Marion Barry was a leader in the city’s civil rights movement. But as mayor in the 1980s and ‘90s he was the personification of the passions, frailties and failures of his community.

11:46

MARION BARRY: America is the biggest consumers of drugs in the world –

12:06

Barry

gasoline and drugs.

BRISSENDEN: Well as you know, you’ve had your own controversies in those areas, too.

MARION BARRY: Of course. Yes, absolutely, but thank God I’m here now.

BRISSENDEN: Yeah, exactly.

12:10

FBI tape. Marion Barry caught in hotel drug bust. Super: 1990

MOORE: Ok… you gonna smoke anything now?

MARION BARRY: What you get?

MOORE: I didn’t get anything. I didn’t…

MARION BARRY: Go get something, go get it.

MOORE: You wanna smoke something?

BRISSENDEN: In 1990, Mayor Barry, in an infamous FBI sting, was video taped smoking crack.

12:23

MOORE: So many times of doin’ this, I get too hyper.

MARION BARRY: Why don’t you do one piece?

MARION BARRY: In this country,

12:41

Barry

certain powers of the Federal Government, certain political enemies went after me for a long time.

12:49

FBI tape. Marion Barry caught in hotel drug bust.

BRISSENDEN: But the black community saw persecution in his prosecution.

12:54

Archival. Marion Barry, release from prison

After serving time in prison, Marion Barry was re-elected mayor.

13:04

Barry on street, talking with residents

13:13

Today, he remains a counsellor, but says he no longer has the energy for the top job. Step on the streets with him though and it’s clear there’s still a lot of love out there for the man who embodied black power in Washington twenty years before Barack Obama.

13:20

MAN BY BUS: You the one who looked after all the young people, you looked out for the old people. They don’t do it like that no more man. They don’t do like you did.

MARION BARRY: I know they don’t.

13:42

MARION BARRY: When you go into the area where I represented you see a different Washington. You see poverty at 54%, unemployment at 35%. You see the highest cancer rate, you see the lowest home ownership rate,

13:55

Barry. Super:
Marion Barry Former Mayor, Washington DC

23% home ownership in Ward 8.... 65% home ownership in predominantly white Ward 3 and people don’t want to talk about that. They want to sweep it under the rug, but I talk about it.

14:09

Obama speech at civil rights concert

BARACK OBAMA: Now the civil rights movement was a movement sustained by music. The hymns of the civil rights movement helped carry the cause of a people and advance the ideals of a nation.

14:21

MARION BARRY: Barack Obama, whom I supported, 44, admired, he stands on the shoulders of people like myself,

14:33

Barry

who were in the civil rights movement, and on the shoulders of Jesse Jackson who ran for president in ‘84, have not done enough. The Federal Government should be putting more money, more help and support.

14:41

BARACK OBAMA: Let the music feed our spirits, give us hope and carry us forward, as one people and as one nation. Enjoy.

14:56

Performance at White House concert

Music

15:04

BRISSENDEN: Barack Obama is an iPod president with a keen ear for music, history and change. At a White House concert this year the President assembled a who’s who of recording stars to celebrate the music of the civil rights movement.

15:11

Many African Americans are pragmatic about what this President might be able to deliver, but many also believe he has a unique responsibility to bridge the fault lines of race in this country.

BARBARA LEE: Symbolism is never enough but I’m going to tell you,

15:31

Barbara Lee

this is not a post racial society, and the President has said that, you know?

BRISSENDEN: Barbara Lee chairs the Congressional Black Caucus. She knows better than most

16:03

Views of Capitol building

that there’s a heightened expectation from African Americans for this President to deliver and impatience is growing.

BARBARA LEE: The Black Caucus has been in existence for forty years

16:12

Barbara Lee

and we’ve always been impatient. When you look at the poverty rates in the African American community, when you look at economic disparities,

16:25

People on street

when you look at African American businesses, when you look at the educational gaps, when you look at health disparities –

16:32

Barbara Lee

we’re going to stay impatient until justice is served.

16:40

Obama posters around neighbourhood

PASTOR TONY LEE: And there are people who are trying to act like oh it’s no big deal. Oh it’s no big thing. But every time they play a picture of that First Family, it’s a big deal.

16:44

Tony Lee. Super:
Tony Lee, Pastor

When you see a black family in the White House, black mother, black father, two black girls, little dog, black grandmama living there, when you see that it says something to the world that is so different than a lot of the images that have been portrayed historically through media all over the globe.

16:57

Young men play basketball

That in itself is significant, greatly significant, and it causes our young people to be able to dream in ways that they never were able to before.

17:16

Pastor Lee in church

17:28

BRISSENDEN: Pastor Tony Lee is one of the more active figures in the Washington badlands. His services are a collision of gospel and Go-Go.

17:40

NATALIE HOPKINSON: It’s been pretty amazing what he’s been able to do and how his church has grown.

17:54

Natalie. Super:
NATALIE HOPKINSON author

You know, he uses Go-Go as a carrot to bring in the people who he feels like he could help and he’s incredibly effective at it.

18:00

Pastor Lee in church

18:10

BRISSENDEN: Tony Lee’s flock is growing and so is his influence, but he counts himself a realist when it comes to Obama’s ability to make things better, here and in other black neighbourhoods.

18:20

PASTOR TONY LEE: I think that everyone thought that a black president comes in and so you’re never going to hear anything from the black civil rights establishment, because they’ll all be so happy.

18:40

Tony Lee. Super:
Tony Lee, Pastor

No! He’s the President, and so there are going to be needs for them still to be an advocate for our issues, to push the President to do what needs to happen. Does that mean he doesn’t want to do it? No. But he needs some political capital to be able to make some stuff happen. He needs some folks grumbling to be able to make some stuff happen etcetera. So yeah, I see him being the president he said he was going to be.

18:49

Washington shots

Music

19:08

BRISSENDEN: Stuff that is happening is either superficial or significant depending on your hopes.

19:12

U Street. Ben’s Chili Bowl

Today on U Street where the fires of racial rage burned in the ‘60s, places like Ben’s Chili Bowl, a black American culinary institution, have become a tourist attraction. It’s said to be the President’s favourite burger joint. He even recommends it to other world leaders.

19:18

NATALIE HOPKINSON: I would never in a million years have imagined that the President of the United States and the President of France would be sitting in Ben’s Chili Bowl.

19:39

Natalie

I mean it’s like completely revolutionary.

19:49

Neighbourhood gentrification

BRISSENDEN: And yet, ever so gradually, depressed neighbourhoods are falling to gentrified developments, pushing black Washington and its Go-Go soundtrack out of earshot.

19:57

Police car in f/g. Crowd in b/g. Mayor addresses crowd at event

It’s enough to send the fallen legends of Go-Go spinning in their graves.

20:13

During our assignment, Little Benny, a Go-Go superstar in these city limits and relatively unknown elsewhere, passed away. A heart attack, not a gun, and he was just 46.

20:34

NATALIE HOPKINSON: Little Benny was a seminal figure in Go-Go and it was a huge, huge shock to the Go-Go community and a big loss. For people who never had a voice, were never acknowledged by anyone in mainstream culture, even in mainstream DC culture, Go-Go is that venue. It’s that place where you

20:53

Natalie

recognise I exist, I existed, I made a contribution. You know, I was here.

21:18

Crowd at event

BRISSENDEN: Despite the pressures on the people and their music, nobody here is prepared to say Go-Go is going to fade away any time soon.

21:24

CHI ALI: I really don’t know. I can’t tell you why they hate the music so much.

21:39

Ali

Go-Go’s a part of DC. You can’t even fix your lips to say District of Columbia without speaking Go-Go.

MAN IN CAR: Well all right now. This is

21:43

Man in car

Go-Go city. We came up with this. We put this on the map here and nobody do it like DC do it, baby.

21:58

Go-Go -performance in church

Music

22:12

PASTOR TONY LEE: You’ll never stop Go-Go music in this city. If they stopped Go-Go music in every club, it would still be played in this church. How do you stop that?

22:23

Tony Lee

If they stop Go-Go music in every place, my church attendance would probably go up like four times. It’ll be like, good God we can’t hear a Congo beat anywhere else, let’s go to the church it’s a safe place to hear it. It’s a part of us. It’s a part of what we’ve grown up with.

22:34

Go-Go -performance in church

Music

22:48

Credits

Reporter: Michael Brissenden

Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen

Camera: Louie Eroglu

Research: Janet Silver

Producer: Greg Wilesmith

23:01