Go-Go 3
However, go-go was the dominant form of popular music among Black Washingtonians in the early to mid-1980s. The number of local bands playing go-go increased, and such long-defunct but fairly memorable bands as The Petworth Boys, Ayre Rayde, and Pump Blenders performed at a wide variety of venues, such as schools, recreation centers, old movie theaters, and small clubs in the District of Columbia and Prince George's County, Maryland.
In 1983 and 1984, there were night-long go-go parties at the Black Hole and the Penthouse clubs located on Georgia Avenue NW near Howard University. At those gatherings, "go-goers" developed or improved upon striking new dances, some of which are shown here such as happy feet, the wop, Inspector Gadget, beat ya feet, and the feigned clumsiness of the Jerry Lewis.
How to Do the Wop | Hip-Hop Dancing [ 00:00-00:00 ]
Learn How to Dance Beat Ya Feet
Inspector Gadget
By the spring of 1985, go-go recordings had become popular enough outside Washington, DC, to capture the attention of Chris Blackwell of Island Records. Utilizing the connections of local record producer Max Kidd and the talent of bands such as Trouble Funk, Experience Unlimited, and Chuck Brown, Blackwell produced a controversial film Good to Go (1986) and an Island-released soundtrack album of the same name.
The film received mixed to negative reviews, especially locally, where critics decried it as poorly conceived. Good to Go celebrated the violence in Washington, DC, and focused on the problems related to "love boat" (crack cocaine) in a gratuitous attempt at a hard-hitting, action-packed "urban" film. Local critics, hoping that Good to Go would foreground the music and its energy, panned it as a misguided and misinformed film by an English producer who did not fully understand street life in the District of Columbia or this unique musical culture.
Why Go-Go Music and Beat Ya Feet are 100% Washington, DC