That song came out on the School Daze soundtrack, one of the first movies I saw with my dad. It’s centered around HBCU life, and the scene features a go-go song. The makeup of the song is go-go, which is a DC sound. When you hear it, it’s the drums that make you move. It was my first time ever hearing go-go. I was seven years old and didn’t know it was go-go, but the way the kids were dancing made me think, “Wow, this is cool.”
I saw it in the movie, and that summer, my grandma took me to New York to visit my family in Queens. If you know New York, it’s known for block parties. At one of those block parties, that song played, and everybody in the street was doing the butt. What I saw on the screen was now happening all around me. It was amazing.
This song, if you play it at any black function, people will go crazy. It represents summertime and black culture. It’s a party record for young and old alike, and it just feels good. The underlying theme is the drums and the horns—that go-go sound. I didn’t know I was going to love go-go, but ever since then, it’s always been my introduction to wanting to be grown.
