Trying to Make a Go-Go of It
Band Believes Genre Can Cross D.C. Line

By Chris Richards
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 4, 2009

The members of Mambo Sauce look dazed -- but not from the flurries of camera-phone flashes, the grueling world tours or the Sharpie fumes that waft during marathon autograph sessions. That stuff hasn't happened yet. And after a band spends an entire year on the cusp of fulfilling an increasingly elusive "yet," eyeballs start glazing over.

Washington's most ambitious go-go troupe has just finished one of three weekly rehearsals held in a windowless shed behind the Bowie home of bassist Khari Pratt. Hunched over on folding chairs, milk crates and amplifiers, the musicians cast deep stares into the floor while lead vocalist Alfred "Black Boo" Duncan refuses to sit.

"Go-go can be as big, if not bigger, than hip-hop," he declares, as if arguing with phantom detractors. "Go-go is the most energetic music out there. You can't name a go-go song that doesn't make you want to get up and dance." His band mates remain seated but summon a collective nod.

Since forming in 2003, Mambo Sauce has held to its mission: Bring go-go to the masses or bust. Some might call it mission impossible. The sound of Washington's indigenous, hyper-percussive funk music has cast a spell over our city's eardrums for decades, but for various reasons has created only momentary flickers on the national stage. Mambo Sauce set out to change that, abandoning the genre's business model and grafting radio-ready hooks to go-go's contagious, conga-laden pulse -- all with the aim of pushing this staunchly local sound into the unpredictable currents of the mainstream.

On New Year's Eve 2007, those dreams didn't seem far from becoming reality. The group was enjoying an opening slot for Chuck Brown at the 9:30 club after months of dominating local airwaves with two wildly catchy singles, "Miracles" and "Welcome to D.C." The latter single managed to sneak onto Billboard's Hot 100 Hip-Hop/R&B singles chart in late January; the song's video would appear on VH1 Soul in July. But as the band hunkered down to finish its debut album, members began wrestling for control with Mambo Sauce manager and founder Malachai Johns. "You want say-so in your future," Duncan explains. "Especially if you've given up so many years in your life to do this."

It was Johns who conceived the idea of an all-original go-go band (cover tunes dominate the repertoires of most go-go acts), but as he's quick to point out: "The idea was much vaster than just an original band. Every single person was handpicked for their look, their temperament. The idea was to create a national artist.

"Eventually, it came down to control," he says, "and they started to feel like 'This is our band, not yours,' so rather than make a bad situation worse, I just decided to move on." The two parties finally parted ways in October. Johns began managing new artists, while the members of Mambo Sauce held on to their day jobs as their debut album slept in cold storage, incomplete and with no label deal in sight.

The setbacks haven't kept Mambo Sauce from the stage, the one place where it's practically guaranteed to win new fans. In November at Bedrock, a nightclub in downtown Baltimore, you'd never mistake the seven-piece band for the zombie-eyed musicians at rehearsal the week before.

Drummer Patricia "Twink" Little and percussionist Jermaine "Pep" Cole are slapping out righteous cadences while Pratt slides gooey notes up and down the fret board of his bass. Andrew "Drew" White wails on his guitar as if channeling the superpowers of Prince. During the rousing set-opener "Miracles," vocalist Joi "J.C." Carter belts out a chorus that asks, "Do you believe in miracles? Maybe we can change the world." It's an apt credo for a band trying not only to survive but to thrive.

"When 'Miracles' hit, that's when we knew we had something special," says Cole, recalling the summer of 2007 when local stations WPGC and WKYS put it in regular rotation. Soon, Mambo Sauce seemed to be cranking over the city's airwaves twice every hour. The folks at Verizon Center followed suit and started blasting "Welcome to D.C." over the PA during last season's Wizards home games. (Currently, there aren't any Mambo Sauce tunes in rotation at Verizon Center and, as Pratt and Duncan are quick to note, the Wiz are in the tank.)

The group's success only seemed instantaneous. Formed over five years ago, the band took its name from a local condiment -- that translucent orange goop drizzled over french fries and chicken at neighborhood carryouts. All veteran players in the go-go scene, the musicians felt stifled by their experiences and were eager to take a new approach to the music they loved. Musically, that meant adding rock and Latin flourishes to the mix. Businesswise, it meant a complete overhaul.

"The local celebrity thing kinda got old to me," says Pratt, who made his name in the '90s playing bass for the legendary Northeast Groovers. "I want to get out there and get the real money, the real fame."

The first step was to ditch the methodology that the group believed had kept so many go-go bands tethered to Washington.

"We decided to do our business the same way a national band would do theirs," Duncan says. "A national artist would record original music. A national artist wouldn't play every week at the same location. A national artist would make sure the quality of the music they were putting out was at a high level. A national artist wouldn't put out PA tapes and be selling their product every week. All of this was planned from the drop."

The band isn't the first go-go group to swing for the fences. Go-go progenitor Chuck Brown had a national presence in the late '70s, and E.U. scored a hit with "Da Butt" in the late '80s, but go-go's popular appeal has never compared with the fevered adoration it received from Washingtonians.

Rather than feeling like pop outsiders, the go-go scene prided itself on being a community of insiders, with some factions growing skeptical of anyone trying to let the secret out.

"We're talking about a culture that was created in spite of what was happening nationally," says Kevin "Kato" Hammond, founder of the influential go-go Web site Take Me Out to the Go-Go. "The pond here is so small, when you leave for your 15 minutes, your spot may be gone when you try to come back. . . . When E.U. came back after signing to [the Virgin label], they almost didn't have a home to come to."

Fortunately (and unfortunately) for Mambo Sauce, the climate today couldn't be more different. The group's goals have been clear since Day 1, so the band doesn't face the threat of losing local fans. But it's trying to charm a record industry on the verge of collapse. The situation has turned Mambo Sauce's next logical step into a death-defying leap: releasing its debut album.

The band has been recording at Baltimore's Wrightway Studios for more than a year and, according to Duncan, the record is "about 80 percent finished."

Otherwise, the musicians remain button-lipped about the album's future, waiting to see if certain managerial partnerships coalesce in time to expedite a proper release. "We're not doing this for a record deal," Duncan is quick to point out. "We're doing this to develop the brand. We just want to achieve national success whether it be through a major label or a distribution deal."

So after trying to resuscitate its dream from a 365-day coma, will Mambo Sauce finally break in 2009? Win or lose, Hammond thinks the group's fate will deliver the final verdict on go-go's crossover potential: "If it don't work for them, you're really not going to see bands try to go national anymore."

That's a lot of weight on the group's shoulders, but onstage in Baltimore, the musicians seem weightless. Carter unleashes big notes with an even bigger smile while Duncan's dance tutorials soon have the flat-footed crowd grooving in lockstep. If Mambo Sauce's mission is to get go-go out of the District, they've done it tonight -- even if it's only a 40-minute drive up the BW Parkway.

During "We Run This," a particularly forceful tune, "Keybo" Chris Wright punches out an electronic beat on his synthesizer made to resemble the minimal "snap" tracks popularized by so many Atlanta rap stars. Suddenly, Cole and Little come bursting into the mix with a hallmark go-go beat. Carter and Duncan deliver the hook in unison: "We run this town, we run this city. . . . Now watch us go!"

This might be the year they finally get there.