Family of ‘Godfather of Go-Go’ Chuck Brown quits supporting D.C. event in his honor

Chuck Brown arrives at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 13, 2011. Brown, who styled a unique brand of funk music as a singer, guitarist and songwriter known as the “godfather of go-go,” died May 16, … Chuck Brown arrives at the 53rd … more >

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By Brad Matthews - The Washington Times - Friday, August 21, 2026

Family members of Chuck Brown, the “godfather” of the District’s go-go sound, say they no longer support the city’s annual Chuck Brown Day.

The event is put on each year by D.C.’s Department of Parks and Recreation on Aug. 22, Brown’s birthday. He died in 2012 at age 75 after being a force in creating the funk subgenre.

The 12th annual Chuck Brown Day event is scheduled for Saturday at Fort Dupont Park in Southeast and will celebrate Brown and 50 years of go-go music, the department said in a release.

The Brown family says it told city park officials in February about backing out.

Citing “marginalization over the past three years with regard to the planning and substance of Chuck Brown Day,” Brown’s family members said in a statement posted to the Chuck Brown Band Facebook page that they “do not want it to continue unless a new director and project leadership is in place to ensure that our duty to protect the integrity of Chuck Brown’s legacy is respected.”

Brown’s family also said it “can no longer risk allowing the event’s organizer’s lack of communication, professionalism, and inability to abide by guidelines in contractual agreements to be interpreted as the family’s approval of the event and its management.”

Parks and Recreation Director Thennie Freeman told Washington’s WTTG that the event’s name will stay and that “Chuck Brown Day is Chuck Brown Day. All of the Go-Go bands talk about how Chuck poured into them, and so our goal is not to be disrespectful at all, but just to pay homage to the music and culture that is Go-Go.”

The start of the family’s falling out with city parks officials coincided with moving the event’s venue to Fort Dupont Park from Chuck Brown Memorial Park in Northeast. City officials told WTTG that they changed the venue because the crowd sizes got too large, going from 1,000 in its first year to over 10,000 last year.

The family says the switch to Fort Dupont Park was not the issue so much as not getting as much input into the event as before. Brown’s son Nekos Brown Sr. told Washington’s WTOP-FM, “Every single thing has to run through us. That is how we stay on brand with everything that has to do with my father.”

Ms. Freeman told WTOP, “We appreciate the Chuck Brown family and their contribution to the event. We look forward to them coming back and participating in future years.”