From rap to punk, Washington offers musical start for many

Many musicians get their start in the area but leave. They share how Washington’s music scene affected them.

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In 2006, Thao Nguyen, a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, left Falls Church for San Francisco. Nguyen said leaving the area was simply about growing up and moving on. She spent her teenage years working in her mother’s Fairfax Circle laundromat. “I would write songs between making change and folding strangers’ laundry,” she said.“We the Common,” Nguyen’s new album with her band The Get Down Stay Down, is her strongest effort yet.

Nick Walker /

Ben Thornewill, Jesse Kristin and Tommy Siegel are the band Jukebox the Ghost. “We took the name Jukebox the Ghost the year we were graduating from George Washington [University] and we left after we graduated,” said Thornewill, singer and pianist. “Part of it was testing out a new scene, part of it was that rent and livability was so expensive in D.C.”.

Shervin Lainez

Jukebox the Ghost guitarist Tommy Siegel performs during the Nowadays Music Festival in Bethlehem, Pa. They left D.C. for Philadelphia and eventually moved to Brooklyn.

Matt Smith / AP

Jesse Tittsworth is a DJ, dance-music producer and co-owner of U Street Music Hall. Tittsworth moved to Los Angeles in 2012. “The house music scene is bubbling,” he said. “The major labels are all out here. But there’s also this peer pressure to be successful, and it can swallow your identity if you’re not careful. So I feel super, super, super happy to have U Hall as an excuse to fly back and forth.”

Josh Sisk / For The Washington Post

Tittsworth drew one of the day's largest crowds at the inaugural Trillectro Festival at the Half Street Fairgrounds in Washington.

Kyle Gustafson / For The Washington Post

Alice Smith, seen performing at the BET Honors 2013 Debra Lee pre-dinner at the Library of Congress, moved to New York at 16 to go to school.

Paul Morigi / Getty Images for BET

“I grew up on Capitol Hill, and I remember that we had really good radio in D.C. When I write music, in my mind, I still hear go-go beats,” Smith said.

Kevin Clark / The Washington Post

Christian “Billy Jeans” Blunda, singer and guitarist of the punk band Mean Jeans, moved to Portland, Ore., in 2007. Here, the Mean Jeans performed at Burger Records Fest, an unofficial South by Southwest show at Trailer Space Records in Austin in March 2012.

Josh Sisk / For The Washington Post

“A lot of the bands I was into had been skipping D.C. on their tours and here, there’s a really great house show scene. It’s more about people having fun. The Mean Jeans, we’re into people having fun,” Blunda said.

Josh Sisk / For The Washington Post

Country singer Maggie Rose moved to Nashville in 2008. She grew up in Potomac and attended Our Lady of Mercy High School.

RPM Entertainment

Rose on June 13, 2012 performs at the Snagajob Pavilion in Glen Allen, Va. “D.C. has changed in the five years I’ve been away, and there seems to be a more creative side to it now,” Rose said. “I think if it had more venues it would flourish even more — medium-sized venues for newer artists.”

Emily Yahr / For The Washington Post

Rapper Oddisee left the D.C. region for Brooklyn in 2011. “I’m still constantly back and forth between New York and D.C. — one of my most successful records was called “Rock Creek Park” and I produced it in Brooklyn. My ties to D.C. are unbreakable and unquestioned,” Oddisee said..

Oddisee

Oddisee, right, performs at the inaugural Trillectro Festival at the Half Street Fairgrounds in Washington on Aug. 11, 2012. Before his performance, Oddisee gave a shout-out to his grandmother, who lives right around the corner.

Kyle Gustafson / For The Washington Post

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HOUSTON, TX—APRIL 25: Naomi Haskell poses for a portrait with her son, Spencer, 19, at her home in suburban Houston, Texas, on Thursday, April 25, 2013. Since he was diagnosed with a type of schizophrenia two years ago, her focus has been on keeping him well. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

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ANNAPOLIS MD: MAY 24
The Class of 2013 culminates their commissioning ceremony with the hat toss, a traditional ending to the ceremony, originated at the Naval Academy in 1912. The 'hat toss' has since become a symbolic and visual end to the four-year program. Photographed at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland on May 24, 2013.
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The 2013 Class of the U.S. Naval Academy holds its graduation and commissioning ceremonies. President Obama spoke at the graduation.

PITTSBURGH, PA - MAY 19: Mark Melancon #35 of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitches in the eighth inning against the Houston Astros during the game on May 19, 2013 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pirates defeated the Astros 1-0. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

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from left to right, Bodybuilders Jorge Villatoro, Sidney Bumbrey, Eric Holmes and Ron Coleman show off their most muscular poses for the judges at the 2013 Musclemania - Capital Tournament of Champions Contest held at the Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center in Silver Spring, Maryland on May 18, 2013.
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epa03714543 US actress Carmen Electra arrives for the Life Ball gala, at the airport Schwechat, in Vienna, Austria, 24 May 2013. The 21th Life Ball, an annual fundraising charity event for HIV and Aids projects, takes place at the Vienna City-Hall on 25 May 2013. EPA/HERBERT NEUBAUER

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WASHINGTON DC: MAY 22
Contestant Travis Rumans, 31 dances with his beloved glow sticks for talent at Penn Social in Washington, DC on May 22, 2013. The contestants help raise over $15,000 for the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
The Mr. DC pageant is a fundraising event to benefit Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
The qualifications for the Mr. District of Columbia finalists is that they must live, work and attend school in the District of Columbia between the ages of 21-30 who are unmarried, intelligent, and dapper in a suit.
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Contestants in the Mr. D.C. Pageant, a fundraising event, helped raise more than $15,000 for the Children’s National Medical Center.

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