That’s because the most likely candidate for D.C.’s song of the summer comes from a homegrown band with “real” instruments and 40 years of history: Rare Essence.

“Turn It Up” is the newest single from the beloved D.C. band, and it’s a crusher. In rock terms, it slays. In millennial terms, it’s 10 fire emojis, at minimum. And naturally, that was the idea, says founding Rare Essence member Andre “Whiteboy” Johnson.

“It’s a club record — uptempo. There’s a beat that we play on this record, and everybody seems to love that beat,” says the 53-year-old.

DJ Kool of “Let Me Clear My Throat” fame guests on “Turn It Up,” which melds old-school, swinging go-go with hard-charging bounce beat. When Kool screams, “If you ridin’ in your car now, turn it up!” you’d be wise to comply. Better yet, pull over.

“Turn It Up” is also the name of Rare Essence’s new album, the band’s first studio full-length in 15 years. It’s out today, one day before the ensemble headlines D.C.’s Funk Parade. Rare Essence commissioned muralist Aniekan Udofia to design the record’s vivid cover, and they just dropped a lively and star-studded “Turn It Up” video, directed by Joseph Pattisall and produced by Roger Gastman. (Watch it above.)

In advance of the new album, Johnson talked to Bandwidth about his initial fear of rocking a mic, the limited rewards of a cover song and Rare Essence’s revived attempt to take over the country.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bandwidth: Turn It Up is your first studio album in 15 years. Why did you decide to release a new record now?

Andre “Whiteboy” Johnson: What we’ve been doing for the past 15 years is mainly just doing live recordings, because those are quick to turn around. But we decided that we wanted to try to get out on the national playing field. … When we were trying to reach out to radio stations outside of the DMV area, they’re not so quick to play a live record. They really want studio records more.

The last time we talked to you, Rare Essence was about to be the first-ever go-go band to play South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. What was that experience like?

That was great. I knew it was gonna be good, but it was better than I thought. Because everybody that was at the show — 90 percent of those people had never even heard of Rare Essence. But they partied with us like they had been listening to us for 20 years.

You’re the only original member of Rare Essence that’s still in the band. How does it feel playing with newer generations of musicians? 

A lot of the guys have been with us for a few years, but it’s cool. It helps to keep you on your toes because there’s a whole new perspective than what we started with. We were doing things one way and playing a certain type of music when we first started, but now it’s evolved into a bunch of other different things.

You’ve been around for 40 years. It seems like you’ve had no choice but to evolve.

[Laughs] Right. ‘Cause if you keep playing the same songs you were playing 35 years ago, I mean, people are bound to get tired of it. As great as the record may be, it’s gonna be like, “Oh, God… come on! Do something else!”

So that’s what we’ve been able to do, and we’ve been very blessed in that area to be able to come up with something new and creative that the people still like. They still love the classic songs, because we cannot get out of the building without playing “Work the Walls,” “Lock It” or “Overnight Scenario.” But they want to hear the newer things as well.

I was talking to [Backyard Band leader] Big G about his band’s Adele cover, and he said some classic go-go bands aren’t big on covers. Rare Essence had its Ashlee Simpson cover, but your new album is all original. How do you feel about covers, generally?

Original music is what really gets you out there. Backyard doing a great job with that Adele cover — that brought a new energy to the Adele record for me. I love what they done with it. But that will only take them so far, like the Ashlee Simpson cover would only take us so far. To be able to get out there and do some originals — “Overnight Scenario” was original, “Lock It,” “Work the Walls” — they were all original, so they all have done much better.

Let’s go back in time for a minute. I watched the interview you recently did with Take Me Out to the Go-Go, and you talked about how you initially resisted getting behind the mic in Rare Essence.

Oh my goodness, I did not want to. I went into that kicking and screaming. There were many a night that the managers and the band was in the back room giving me a pep talk — “Come on man, you can do it. Let’s go. We got all these people out there waiting on you.” And I’m sitting back there saying, “Nope, I’m not going out there, I’m not doing it.” ‘Cause it was a frightening experience to come from — I was kind of the band director. I was more in between the front line guys and the band. For me to move from that position up to the lead mic and I’m actually running the show, it was absolutely terrifying.

Plus, I knew the fact that [former Rare Essence talker] James Funk at that time was the MVP. Everybody wanted to hear Funk, and nobody wanted to hear me. That’s what scared me the most. People were looking at me like, “What are you doing? Why are you up here? We didn’t even know you could talk.”

How did you acclimate to it?

The crowd sort of changed a bit. All of the old-school [fans] that really liked James Funk, they kind of phased out, and the new crowd that was more into myself and Donnell Floyd started to be the normal audience. So with Donnell and I doing a tag-team type of thing, we were grooming our own audience. Now, we still get a lot of the old-school people to come out to support — especially when we bring James Funk in as a featured artist. Then we get both audiences [old and new].

Rare Essence is headlining Funk Parade this year. What are your expectations for that gig? 

Oh, man. We played a Funk Parade pre-show last year, and it’s a completely different audience. I didn’t realize that alternative audience was into funk music like that. It’s crazy. They know the records! They know the songs. [Laughs] But it’s great, though, because they have a good time when they come out.

Have you ever had a white-collar day job?

I haven’t. No.

So music is your life’s work.

Yeah! I’ve been extremely blessed to be able to do that. The last job I had was McDonald’s when I was 18 and I was trying to buy a car.

That’s amazing. 

Yeah. I’ve been extremely blessed, for real.

There’s been a lot of talk about problems facing go-go, like a diminishing supply of venues. What do you think about the health of the scene now? 

I think the scene is in danger, but the audience always finds a way to help keep this music alive. We’ve gone through this type of thing before — in the ’80s and the ’90s — but we’re still here. We have a lot less venues than we did back then, but we’re still here.

As long as the audience is involved — and they’ve proven that they’re gonna be here, after 30 or 40 years — they’ve just been terrific [about] supporting the music. So we believe that the music will survive. But we want to really be thriving as opposed to just surviving. That’s the idea behind putting out this new record.

Rare Essence plays May 7 at the Funk Parade in D.C. More show listings on rareessence.com.

Sounds like these capture a “changing of the guard” in Washington, says D.C. producer Kokayi — and he stitches them together with other locally sourced audio in a new project called The Sounds of the City.

In March, organizers of the annual Funk Parade put out a call for recordings captured in the District. “What sounds make you think of D.C.?” asked parade co-founder Justin Rood. “What is the song this city makes?” Recordings from the public, organizers said, would be turned over to Kokayi to sample, splice and loop into a “song for D.C.”

But Kokayi got more sounds than he expected — more than 30, all told.

“I got so much great stuff that I was like, ‘Ooh, I could do way more songs than just one,'” the artist says. So he decided to make four tracks — one for each city quadrant.

The result is a four-part audio soundscape that tells a story about urban change and the sharp contrasts that define many Washington neighborhoods.

Track No. 4, “Dreams Deterred,” portrays two sides of life in the neighborhood Kokayi calls home. “The recent crimes at Deanwood Metro starkly contrast the peace of nature that exists in Deanwood,” he says. To get at both sides, he combined a trap beat with sounds of Deanwood nature and rhythms heard at the Malcolm X Park drum circle.

The project’s third track, “Gentry & the Ebon Road,” sounds scattered and confused. That’s on purpose, Kokayi points out.

“The song begins with the sound from the corner of 7th and U and slowly distorts as a representation of the reconstruction and gentrification of U Street,” he says. He builds the track using sounds of go-go beats, a downtown D.C. violin performance, a walk through Shaw and a house flip in progress.

Kokayi dedicates “SoawesomE” to Southeast. Constructed from audio of a helicopter, birds and a band practice, the track aims to “illustrate how Southeast has always received negative media coverage without people actually knowing the tony estates of Hillcrest,” he says. Meanwhile, Southwest tune “SolidGold Waterfront” uses recordings of demolition, a motorcycle and a city bus to depict development in the city’s smallest quadrant.

The project took two and a half weeks to complete, Kokayi says. His main goal? The element of surprise. “I wanted to come up with different rhythms that wouldn’t be expected,” he says.

He hopes his work inspires more locals to create their own D.C. soundscapes.

“[Residents] should spend some time actually going out and taping their neighborhoods,” Kokayi says, “so you can hear some of the wild stuff that happens.”

Listen to “Sounds of the City,” also called “Hecho in D.C.,” below. The Funk Parade takes place May 7 in the U Street neighborhood.

Photo by Flickr user Ryan McKnight used under a Creative Commons license.

Original post:

Just one day after his band rocked the Funk Parade off U Street, Junkyard Band bassist and manager Derek Anthony “House” Colquitt, 47, died Sunday afternoon in a motorcycle crash in Waldorf, Maryland. His passenger Jeri Lanelle Whorton, 34, died later of her injuries at Prince George’s Hospital, according to Maryland State Police.

Police say Colquitt and Whorton were riding a 2013 Harley-Davidson on 301 in Maryland, and Colquitt “failed to control” the bike’s speed, colliding with a Dodge Ram and catching fire. Colquitt died at the scene. Whorton, who was not wearing a DOT-approved helmet, was ejected from the motorcycle.

The prior afternoon, Junkyard Band played Funk Parade at the Lot at Atlantic Plumbing.

Junkyard was one of D.C.’s biggest go-go bands, starting in 1980 out of the Barry Farm community in Southeast Washington. The band “used buckets and cans because these young kids of the projects… at time did not have enough money to purchase real equipment. They used whatever they found to play, and they didn’t let anyone or anything [stop] them from playing,” according to the group’s biography. The band was particularly well known for its 1986 song “Sardines,” released along with “The Word” on Def Jam.

Heart heavy this morning! R.I.P. "HOUSE" Of the GOOD JUNKYARD BAND!! WAS KILLED YESTERDAY IN FATAL CAR CRASH. DYNAMITE BASS PLAYER! GOOD DUDE!! VERY UNFORTUNATE LOSS!! #RESURRECTINPARADISE #ILOVEGOGO

A photo posted by JOEL IS L.O.U.D. (@smokn_joe4real) on May 4, 2015 at 4:23am PDT

It was a much-needed move, says organizer Justin Rood, who says last year’s party was just too popular to stay confined to its partially off-street parade route.

The parade doesn’t happen till Saturday, May 2, but that’s too far away for local group D.C. Bike Party. Wednesday, D.C. Bike Party hosts “Cherry Blossom Chase: The Funk Edition,” a hybrid Cherry Blossom/Funk Parade-themed group bike ride that starts at Dupont Circle at 7 p.m. Get there early and you’ll catch some live tunes from Crush Funk Brass, but when the ride takes off, the two-wheeled revelers will be blasting a new Funk Parade mix from veteran D.C. DJ Qdup.

Rood says the mix is to be “played in the car with your windows rolled down or from speakers on your funk bike” — or, I’ll add, basically any time you need a shot of funk.

Bandwidth got an early listen to the 50-minute mix, which includes two all-new tracks: A fresh All Good Funk Alliance song featuring Trouble Funk’s Big Tony and Qdup’s own forthcoming “Funk & Dance” single with Mustafa Akbar of Nappy Riddem and Fort Knox Five. The mix’s Funk Parade PSAs come courtesy of Akbar, singer Edy Blu and Elin Melgarejo from Alma Tropicalia.

Now blast this thing.

“Cherry Blossom Chase: The Funk Edition” starts April 8 at 7 p.m. in Dupont Circle. The Funk Parade takes place May 2.

Qdup presents “Funk Parade 2015 Mix” by Fort Knox on Mixcloud

Track list:
1. Fatback Band – Mister Bass Man (Remix)
2. Betty Wright – Clean Up Woman (Jim Sharp Edit)
3. KC & The Sunshine Band – Get Lifted (Wood n Soo Edit)
4. Etta James – You Can Leave Your Hat On (Funk Ferret Edit)
5. Aretha Franklin – Rock Steady (Copycat Remix)
6. Sly & The Family Stone – If You Want Me To Stay (Funk Ferret Edit)
7. Opiuo – Space Party ft. The Fungineers, BluRum13, Russ Liquid
8. DJ Dan & Uberzone – More Bounce
9. Qdup – Funk & Dance ft Mustafa Akbar
10. Raphael Saadiq feat. Q-Tip – Get Involved (Jean Tonique Edit)
11. Roy Ayers – Love Will Bring Us Back Together (DJ Vas rework)
12. Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get it On / Sexual Healing Ft. Max-A-Million (Stickybuds Remix)
13. General Caine – Shake (Slynk Redrum 2012)
14. Delightful Times (Dr Packer Mash Up)
16. Mark Ronson – Feel Right feat. Mystikal (Qdup Warped edit)
17. Lyn Collins – Think (About It) – (Bobby Cooper Re-Edit)
18. All Good Funk Alliance – Make it Go-Go feat. Trouble Funk (Extended Cut)

Photo by Flickr user Elvert Barnes used under a Creative Commons license.

The Funk Parade will take place on the historic stretch between Howard Theatre (near 7th and T streets NW) and Lincoln Theatre, according to a press release.

Organizers of the parade said in January that they’d asked the city to shut down U Street for the event, which reportedly attracted more than 25,000 attendees last year and overwhelmed its parade route. But as weeks went by, organizers still hadn’t heard from city officials about their request to formally close the corridor for the parade’s 2015 edition. Supporters started an online petition asking the government to honor their request.

Bowser spokesman Michael Czin told Bandwidth in January that Funk Parade was on the mayor’s radar, but it needed to work its way through the “normal process” of approving street closures. “We are a pro-funk administration,” Czin said.

D.C. Council members Brianne K. Nadeau and David Grosso today expressed support for Funk Parade taking over U Street.

“I believe that the U Street Funk Parade is an example of how the city can support the arts as an economic driver and celebrate the unique history and culture of the U Street Corridor,” Grosso said in a press release.

Nadeau, whose district includes the U Street corridor, was less formal about it.

“As a strong supporter of the U Street Funk Parade, I’m pleased that this year’s parade route reflects the growth of the festival,” Nadeau said in the release. “Bring on the funk!”

Funk Parade photo by Flickr user Pabak Sakar used under a Creative Commons license.

Update, 2:30 p.m.: Mayor Bowser spokesperson Michael Czin says the Funk Parade is “working its way through the normal process,” and the mayor’s office is looking forward to working with event organizers. “We are a pro-funk administration,” Czin says.

Original post:

A petition has started on behalf of the Funk Parade, the street festival that debuted last year in D.C.’s U Street neighborhood. The petition on change.org calls for the District to formally shut down U Street NW for the second edition of the parade on May 2, 2015 — a request that organizer Justin Rood says city officials rebuffed for last year’s edition.

The petition calls the 2014 event an enormous success, but says it could have been a lot less cramped if it had been permitted to take place on U Street.

“Nobody got hurt, but the route itself was not big enough to accommodate everyone,” Rood says. According to the petition — started Wednesday by Kevin Rooney of U Street Buzz — the inaugural Funk Parade attracted 30,000 attendees, all squeezed into a route that followed Vermont Avenue NW to V Street, winding up in Ben Ali Way. (The Washington Post published a map of the route last spring.)

“That was the route the city suggested. The worst part was the alley they had it ending on was narrow and short, and there was no dispersal area,” Rood says. According to Rood, Funk Parade attendees spilled over into U Street — which would have been just fine, if the street had been formally closed.

Rood says that last fall, Funk Parade organizers submitted a letter of intent to the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency — namely the Mayor’s Special Event Task Force Group — hoping to start the complicated process of closing U Street for the event’s second edition. He says they’ve heard no response from that or any other city agency involved in handling major events. (A spokesperson for HSEMA redirected WAMU’s inquiries to Mayor Bowser’s office.)

As of noon on Friday, the petition has been signed by more than 340 supporters. Rooney says he’s hoping for 5,000, but that’s a more or less arbitrary goal. “We don’t want to antagonize anybody,” he says, “but we want to show city officials that there’s broad support” for the Funk Parade.

Mayor Bowser expressed support for the Funk Parade in her campaign literature, saying, “With iconic arts institutions like the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center, and exciting new initiatives like the (e)merge Arts Fair, Capital Fringe and Funk Parade drawing artists, musicians, creative innovators and their visitors from around the world, cultural tourism is one of the city’s growing sectors.”

At-Large Council member David Grosso tweeted in approval of the petition Wednesday, writing, “The Funk Parade was awesome last year. Definitely want to see it happen again on U Street.”

Another at-large Council member, Anita Bonds, wrote a letter to Mayor Gray’s office in support of closing U Street for the event in 2014, says Bonds spokesperson David Meadows, but he can’t yet confirm whether the council member is ready to throw her support behind it again. He adds that Bonds “understands the concerns of closing such a major corridor.”

Funk Parade photo by Flickr user Kathmandu used under a Creative Commons license.

Now Asheru has a new music video for a song that touts his local pride. Over an Afrobeat instrumental, “Funky D.C.”—a track from his recent South Africa-influenced album Sleepless In Soweto—finds the veteran rapper shouting out neighborhoods and locations in his hometown: “Trinidad, Uptown, Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan, Southwest Waterfront, Benning Road, Minnesota, Sheriff Road…”

Shot at the D.C. Funk Parade in May, the video has Asheru performing with the Ballou Senior High School Marching Band along U Street NW. Asheru says he wanted the video to focus on the students and the work they put in. “I wanted to make sure we got all the best sides of the city in one visual,” says the rapper, who’s served as Ballou’s director of arts integration for the past three years. But he aimed to demonstrate his own multitudes, too. “I also wanted this to show the many sides of Asheru.”

In May, Ash released a video for “So Amazing” that was shot during a visit to South Africa this spring. After “Funky D.C.,” he plans to drop a new video every month until a remix project for Sleepless in Soweto releases this fall.

Megafaun and Grandma Sparrow
Thursday, May 1 at DC9, $14

Before Justin Vernon recorded as Bon Iver, he was in a Wisconsin indie-rock band called DeYarmond Edison. Vernon’s three former DeYarmond Edison bandmates, now based in Durham, North Carolina, are the psychedelic rock band Megafaun. Merging vocals reminiscent of Fleet Foxes with off-kilter instrumentation and a lo-fi aesthetic, the trio might not be quite as famous as their former bandmate, but Megafaun’s folk/post-rock style is well worth hearing. Opening the show is the psychedelic Grandma Sparrow.

Nakatani Gong Orchestra
Friday, May 2 at tBack Alley Theater, $12

Friday, acoustic sound artist Tatsuya Nakatani leads a group of 11 local musicians in a large gong ensemble. These instruments, both bowed and struck with mallets, produce a sound both melodic and percussive; Nakatani’s last visit to D.C. saw him performing at the Kennedy Center, so the DIY feel of the Back Alley Theater will give this ensemble quite a different feel. Preceding the ensemble performance, Nakatani will perform a solo percussion set.

The Whigs and Nikki Lane
Friday, May 2 at Rock & Roll Hotel, $15

Athens-based garage rock band The Whigs blend their noisy riffs with some serious pop-influenced hooks—not surprising influences for a band that’s toured with acts ranging from Kings of Leon to Band of Skulls. The fuzz and distortion that permeates their music is perfect for a sweaty Friday night. Opener Nikki Lane has a distinct country point of view; her sassy twang is reminiscent of early Neko Case.

The Funk Parade
Saturday, May 3 on U Street NW; free

Coordinated by the folks behind Listen Local First, the inaugural Funk Parade is an all-day street festival with a participatory parade (from their web site: “Get up, get into it, get involved!”), dance performances and workshops. At night, the funk moves into many of U Street’s top music venues—DC9, Tropicalia,  U Street Music Hall, Patty Boom Boom, and Twins Jazz, among others—with free-admission performances by performers including Cheick Hamala Diabate, Elikeh, and Sugar Bear and EU.

Kohoutek, Taiwan Housing Project, Tulsa
Sunday, May 4 at Velvet Lounge, $8

Kohoutek used to be a D.C.-based band, and the group’s drummer, Scott Verrastro, regularly put on DIY shows at his home on Florida Avenue NW. Those days have passed now that Verrastro has moved to Philadelphia, so Kohoutek’s improvised psych-noise shows in the District are a much rarer occurrence than they used to be. Verrastro still knows how to put together a killer lineup, though: joining Kohoutek are Taiwan Housing Project (a collaboration between Kilynn Lunsford of Little Claw and Mark Feehan of Harry Pussy) and Tulsa, a band featuring members of the psych-shoegaze band Dark Sea Dream.

Jessy Lanza, Ricky Eat Acid
Monday, May 5 at Black Cat Backstage, $12

This week Stereogum declared that R&B-tinged electronic music—inescapable for the last three years—had reached its saturation point. I can’t disagree, but I’m not quite ready to take Jessy Lanza’s electronic-meets-R&B album “Pull My Hair Back” out of my headphones. The whispery Canadian vocalist and producer is too good at earworms. A live video she recently recorded for KCRW is entrancing, particularly her deft performance of “Keep Moving,” a highlight from “Pull My Hair Back” (and my running playlist). Monday night, she’s supported by College Park, Maryland’s own Ricky Eat Acid. (Ally Schweitzer)

Also recommended this week:
Heavy Metal Night at Port City Brewing and Foul Swoops, Flesh Panthers, and Neonates at The Dougout (tonight); Typefighter, Shark Week, Sunset Guns, and Teen Mom at Rock & Roll Hotel (Saturday); A Minor Forest and Two Inch Astronaut at DC9 (Sunday); The Dead Women and Nice Breeze at Galaxy Hut (Monday).

These and other show listings can be found on ShowListDC.