Maybe Clinton previewed this development himself, when he wrote the lyric: "God bless Chocolate City and its vanilla suburbs." Which, it seems, Clinton is now doing, as well.

Natalie Hopkinson’s article in last Sunday’s Washington Post Outlook section, “Go-go music is the soul of Washington, but it’s slipping,” has generated some discussion thanks to its provocative title, its subject and contentions, and its prominent location in the paper. It's being passed around a fair bit: I saw it on former Rolling Stone contributor Dave Marsh’s Rap and Roll Confidential e-mail list, as well as Cuba and Its Music author Ned Sublette’s e-mail list. Hopkinson's article offers a fine overview of go-go's recent history, and parts of her theory are well-expressed. But some of the piece’s contentions, specifically those suggesting a causative relationship between gentrification and the diminished presence of go-go within the city, raised my eyebrows, and I wasn't alone. I e-mailed several questions to Hopkinson, who is the author of the forthcoming book Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City.

Hopkinson’s article starts out by establishing her theory that “the place that created go-go is shoving it aside” through an anecdote of a single unnamed club that decided to bar Suttle Thoughts, a go-go band that appeals to a "grown and sexy" audience, from performing, because the club manager saw a bandmember walking in with a conga drum. Hopkinson then invokes changes she has seen in two D.C. neighborhoods: “The U Street NW and H Street NE corridors have gone upscale, pushing out the places where you could buy tickets, hear go-go music live, and purchase your neighborhood's unique brand of embroidered sweats. Ibex, a popular Georgia Avenue NW go-go club, has been transformed into luxury condos.”

There are arguably a few holes in these arguments. To start, an unnamed club’s unnamed manager deciding to suddenly drop a band on the night of a gig—a band that Hopkinson acknowledges plays multiple times a week at various clubs—seems  to say more about the unpredictability of that particular establishment’s manager than about the state of go-go in D.C. Her second contention—regarding neighborhoods going upscale, and the Ibex becoming luxury condos—omits a few facts. As Hopkinson notes later in the piece, the Ibex got shut down by the D.C. government in 1997 when a policeman was shot on the street near the club. Not only that, but Hopkinson fails to note that the Ibex then sat empty for over two years and then reopened as a short-lived furniture store. The owner did not even draw up the condo-conversion plan until 2005. Asked whether it was in fact violence and not gentrification that caused the transformation, Hopkinson defended her argument: “The word 'gentrification' does not appear in my article. Not necessarily because it is not accurate, but because this is a loaded term that I find some people get really defensive about, which is in itself quite interesting to me. It was a long article and it will be a long book. There are no 'good' guys and 'bad' guys in either of them. Violence is clearly a factor, which I addressed directly. But the fact is that places where go-go once flourished, there are now establishments that cater to 'upscale' crowds that have put it out of go-go's socioeconomic reach. However you wish to label the process of that happening is up to you.”

Hopkinson’s article also points to the demise of other D.C. establishments to make her point. She asserts that “the flagship store for local urbanwear designer We R One on Florida Avenue NW went out of business a couple of summers ago.” But what she failed to mention is that property was bought by the historically black Howard University (which has been in the area for close to 150 years) as part of an expansion. It's still empty. I asked her, How is this gentrification? She pointed back to her original example and added: “I also challenge the premise of this question, because it implies that historically Black institutions do not have the means and ability to be 'gentrifiers.' This is incorrect.”

Hopkinson’s article next suggests that the closing of other D.C. and Maryland stores are also indicative of go-go's marginalization: “I-Hip-Hop and Go-Go, a store on H Street NE, has been shuttered. The flagship location of  P.A. Palace, a chain of go-go stores, has been bulldozed to make way for a Wal-Mart in Landover Hills.” But her article ignores the fact that the H street NE store was opened fairly recently and was not there long. It's no longer shocking that retail stores—especially music stores—are having trouble these days. These woes aren't unique to go-go. As for P.A. Palace, the chain still has locations in Forestville mall and Iverson Mall, both in Maryland. I asked her how the facts about these establishments fit into her argument about go-go being forced out of D.C. And certainly, the closing of retail music stores has more to do with the music business than gentrification, right?  Hopkinson once again pointed to her original argument, and then contended, “I never said that go-go was not part of the music business. It is. P.A. Palace had been the largest chain of stores that sold live go-go music in the DMV. The fact that their flagship location was closed and replaced by a big-box chain store reinforces the idea that the Peculiar People lead talker said [page 3 in the article]: without go-go, we are like any other state. I'm not sure how long the H Street location of I-Hip-Hop/Go-Go was opened. But I spent several months there doing ethnographic research throughout 2006.”

Hopkinson’s article noted various incidents of violence that were associated with go-go shows in D.C. in 2005 and 2007. I suggested to her, Isn’t it more accurate to say that go-go's shift to Maryland has much more to do with crackdowns on club violence during Anthony Williams' time as mayor? And that these crackdowns were just generally aimed at stopping club violence all over the city, and not to help developers or upscale residents gentrify neighborhoods where the go-go clubs were located? Hopkinson disagreed: “No.  Anthony Williams is just one mayor among several different political and private actors who have impacted go-go.”

I thought the article, in discussing go-go's migration from D.C. to Maryland, also failed to make completely clear that go-go has always had a strong Prince Georges County presence. I saw a go-go show at Rosecroft Raceway and several at the old Capital Centre in the early '80s; there were also go-go shows at many other P.G. County locations, and many go-go bandmembers live there. I asked Hopkinson: How are these longtime locations more “marginalized” and less important than the D.C. locations that hosted go-go in the past? Hopkinson responded: “Good question. Prince George's always has been an integral part of the culture and history of go-go. Many of the most iconic shows, including "Go-Go Live" the p.a.[cassette name] for which I'm taking my book title, took place in the county. They are not less important, but they do not have the iconic status as the "Chocolate City" and all the symbolism of being at the seat of power and all of that. The proximity of the go-go scene to the foremost international seat of power has always been one of the interesting paradoxes to explore.”

Some would contend that go-go’s less prominent status has to do with changes in the music itself. Hopkinson’s article hinted at, but did not fully address, the possibility that some of the local audience is more interested in hearing rappers like Wale and others perform originals, rathering than seeing newer bounce beat go-go bands performing only covers. I asked her, Are these bounce beat go-go groups failing to market themselves the way older go-go groups did, and the way current rappers are? Or is the local mainstream media failing to seek out these younger bands and give them coverage (whether they are playing in Maryland or D.C.). Hopkinson replied: “This is another good question that touches on an ongoing debate in the go-go community re: bounce beat and covers, etc. Believe me, I know how hard it is to be a 'mainstream' writer trying to write about go-go. I have a whole chapter about that in my book. I don't think I can fully do it justice in this space.”

Finally, I noted that there are still numerous go-go shows every week; is gentrification really killing go-go?  Hopkinson observed: “Maybe I wasn't totally clear in the article. If so that is my fault. Go-go is very much alive. It is not dead. As I quoted Nico saying, more bands are forming than ever before. It has a lot of challenges. The point of the article was to educate those who don't know about this culture and to point out that the prejudice against the music (reified by policies like the police 'go-go report') means that there will soon be a time when it doesn't exist in DC at all. At that point we can no longer call DC the Chocolate City. That is the point of my book. It's just change. Some change is good, some not so much. The Beat will go on, but that it won't be at the seat of international power makes a larger statement about cities, about race, class, arts culture, history. So many things.”

Rapper 20 Bello; Photograph by Darrow Montgomery

Thanks to the hard work of both hip-hop pioneers and young upstarts throughout D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, the DMV is now officially on the map. It’s also in the dictionary. The Urban Dictionary—but still.

Most regions with thriving hip-hop scenes have catchy nicknames, but before the whole DMV acronym caught on in the mid-aughts, the greater nation’s capital lacked one. Chocolate City, popularized decades ago, was starting to get a little moldy, and it ignores both the all-important suburbs and the fact that D.C. is becoming more cream-filled by the day. There have been valiant efforts to make “The Middle East” (for middle East Coast, get it?) stick, but it didn’t happen. Ditto for “Tri-State,” which failed not only because it’s already taken but because, technically, only two states are involved.

So where’d the acronym come from? In an informal poll of area hip-hop luminaries—from Judah to Kokayi, Head-Roc to Overok—the same three names came up over and over: Wale, DJ Rob AKA Mista DMV, and 20Bello.

Actually, there was one other contender, too: MC-turntablist-producer DJ Eurok maintains the first use of the DMV to mean D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (rather than a certain dysfunctional city agency), was on local corner store phone cards emblazoned with phrases such as “Excellent DMV local access.” He may be right, but in terms of making the term hot, credit definitely goes to the hip-hop community.

“Since I was a kid we always said ‘DC, Maryland, Virginia’ area in that order,” writes Tyrone Norris of Rosetta Stoned in an e-mail. “I think I hear DMV used most when describing the hip-hop scene in the area. If anyone really pushed that phrase, it was the rappers.”

Wale certainly took “DMV” global—thanks to his major-label deal and increasingly high profile, he has been able to sprinkle the term in countless interviews and performances all over the country, but his manager says he didn’t coin the term and doesn’t claim to. “When I started managing him in 06 it was already becoming ubiquitous in the area,” Dan Weisman writes in an e-mail.

DJ Rob has the distinction of being the first person to use the term on national TV: He was on MTV’s Sucka Free in 2006 and said he was representing “the DMV.” And when host DJ Cipha Sounds made a dumb joke about long lines, DJ Rob quickly checked him: “Naw, D.C., Maryland, and V-A—get it right,” he said.

Rich, the owner of the Target Squad empire, says his crew, and Rob in particular, are the originators of the DMV movement—he recalls that DJ Rob and Target Squad introduced the term to former WKYS radio jock II Face the Wild Boy, who in turn popularized it with on-air personalities. “After II Face started saying it on the radio hard, then [WPGC] 95 started jumping on it,” he says. “And then it was like domino effect, it started jumping, jumping—everybody started saying it."

But Rich stops just short of saying Target Squad actually made up the acronym: “DMV is Department of Motor Vehicles, so of course we didn’t invent it. We wanted to copyright it, but our lawyers said, ‘No, are you crazy? That’s the Department of Motor Vehicles.’”

Rapper 20Bello, on the other hand, says he was the first to call this area the DMV and has been using the term since 2003. He offers compelling evidence. 20 possesses a flier from that year, and although a date isn’t listed, he can convincingly authenticate it.

“At the end of ’03, I started letting hair grow,” he says. “That’s when me and [fellow rapper] Hevewae did the promo flier. In ’04, ’05 I had cornrows—that was before I started growing my ’locks in ’06, when I was on the cover of City Paper. Before ’04, ’05, my hair wasn’t long, and that’s my picture on the DMV fliers.”

In fact, 20 says his former partner Katt Galloway coined the abbreviation during a recording session for a song they did back in ’03, and from then on, 20 decided to put it on everything he did: T-shirts, Web sites such as DMV Undaground, open mic nights. He also recorded a track called “DMV” back in ’05. “I never wanted nothing out of it—I did it because I loved the music, the whole scene. If I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t waste my time saying I did—I don’t get no royalty check every time somebody says ‘DMV’—I get no benefit.”

Both the Target Squad camp and 20Bello and crew have people to back up their claims; both also agree that while there are certain bragging rights that come with christening this area the “DMV,” the most important thing is that it has brought some unity to a formerly fragmented region and music scene.

“Now you can’t rep D.C. without repping V-A or MD,” says Rich. “This area will be like the bext ATL, the next MIA—we can go platinum in this area,” says Rich.

“The main reason I did it was because of unity,” says 20.  “Nobody was supporting nobody, people weren’t coming out to the open mics…D.C. wouldn’t support V-A, Baltimore wouldn’t support D.C.…we had to get it under one banner. Now, if you’re rappin’, you’re part of the DMV.”