From a press release:
“As members of the inaugural “Culture Caucus”, Don’t Mute D.C., will host the “Healing Power of Go-Go” Festival from Friday, July 22nd through Saturday, July 23rd at the Kennedy Center. This event will allow patrons and the community to explore the role that Black music plays in healing from individual and societal traumas. The festival will include free activities such as live music, impactful conversations, art vendors and dance and drumming workshops.
Ronald Moten, co-curator of the weekend’s festival, has conducted youth drumming healing workshops at the Go-Go Museum & Café for over a decade. “They say hurt people hurt people, and healed people heal people,” states Moten. “Go-go has helped heal and give hope, and power to a community that has been neglected by policy makers for too long.”
Don’t Mute DC is a coalition of advocates, musicians, scholars and policy makers who have coordinated a powerful ongoing response to gentrification and the silencing of Black culture dramatized by the battle over music playing outside the Metro PCS in Shaw in Spring April 2019. Since January 2020, Don’t Mute DC has established a coalition, The Reach, as part of a group of two dozen community groups selected to activate the center’s expansion.
“We have come a long way since go-go music was scapegoated and criminalized by local policy makers in the 1980s,” said Dr. Natalie Hopkinson, Howard University scholar and co-curator of the weekend festival. “We invite the public to experience the culture and learn about how drums are powerful forces to elevate political issues as well as medicine to feed our souls.”
The Healing of Go-Go Festival will feature several community activists, thought leaders, local musicians and artists such as Howard University professor, Dr. Natalie Hopkinson; “Mame’s Spirit” author, Dr. Bernard Demczuk; Go-Go Museum & Cafe Co-Founder, Ronald “Moe” Moten; Master drummer Kweku Sumbry; Howard University Health Communication Professor Dr. Monica Ponder; Music Neuroscientist, Dr. Jessica Phillips-Silver; Junie Henderson, Leader of The Prince Experience; The Junkyard Band; DJ Big John; trombone ing Travis and the sultry voice of J’ta Freeman.
Additional partners for this event include Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the District Office of Cable, Television, Film, Music and Entertainment, and Humanities in Public.
Click here to view a full schedule of events or to register for any of the free panel discussions.”