Music, Hip-Hop & Cannabis Culture in DC

Last verified: April 2026

Go-Go: DC’s Official Music

Go-go is Washington, DC’s indigenous music — a genre that was born here, evolved here, and remains here in a way that no other American city can claim about its local sound. Created by Chuck Brown in the 1970s, go-go blends funk, soul, and Latin percussion into a continuous, never-stopping groove where the beat never drops. The audience is part of the performance — call-and-response is not optional, it’s structural.

Cannabis has been woven into go-go culture since the genre’s origins. The late-night shows, the block parties, the cookouts, the park jams that defined go-go’s community roots — cannabis was present at all of them, and the criminalization of cannabis was inseparable from the over-policing of the Black communities where go-go thrived. When DC legalized cannabis in 2014, it was partly a recognition that the culture Congress was criminalizing had been here all along.

In 2019, the Don’t Mute DC movement brought go-go’s cultural significance into national focus when a noise complaint threatened to shut down go-go music playing outside a Metro PCS store in Shaw. The community’s fierce response — and the city’s subsequent designation of go-go as DC’s official music — underscored how deeply this sound is embedded in the city’s identity.

The National Hip-Hop Museum & Cannabis

The National Hip-Hop Museum (NHHM), co-founded by Master Gee of the Sugarhill Gang, has established a direct, unapologetic connection between hip-hop history and DC’s cannabis culture. This is not a corporate partnership — it’s a cultural statement that cannabis and hip-hop have been intertwined since the genre’s birth, and that DC is where that connection is being institutionalized.

The NHHM’s cannabis presence operates through two locations:

Lifted Lounge (406 Florida Ave NW)

The NHHM’s House of Hip-Hop gallery at Lifted Lounge combines cannabis consumption with hip-hop museum exhibition. The gallery houses KRS-ONE’s RIAA Gold plaque and rotating hip-hop artifacts, displayed in a smoke lounge with live DJs and THC drinks. This is a consumption-and-culture venue that could not exist in most American cities — and exists in DC only because the city’s regulatory gray areas have created space for it.

Orbit Shop (1921 18th St NW, Adams Morgan)

The NHHM’s retail partnership with Orbit Shop in Adams Morgan produces cannabis strains named for hip-hop legends:

• SLAM / Onyx — named for the hardcore hip-hop group behind “Slam” and “Throw Ya Gunz”
• Googley Goo / DAS EFX — honoring the duo that pioneered the “iggedy” rap style in the early 1990s
• Sugarhill Delight — a tribute to the Sugarhill Gang, whose “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) brought hip-hop to mainstream America
• Stunts Blunts & Hip-Hop / Diamond D — named for Diamond D’s 1992 debut album, a cornerstone of DITC (Diggin’ in the Crates) production

These are not gimmick strains. They represent the NHHM’s thesis that cannabis culture and hip-hop culture are not separate things that occasionally overlap — they are the same community, the same movement, expressing itself through different creative forms.

DMV Artists & Cannabis

The DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia) has produced a generation of artists who have carried the region’s music and cannabis culture to national and international audiences:

• Wale — DC’s most prominent rapper, whose career-long connection to go-go culture (sampling Chuck Brown, performing with go-go bands) bridges the city’s indigenous sound with mainstream hip-hop. Wale has been vocal about cannabis and its role in DC culture
• GoldLink — The DMV artist whose “future bounce” sound blends go-go percussion with electronic production, representing the evolution of DC’s music into new forms
• Rico Nasty — Maryland-raised, DMV-claimed rapper whose aggressive, genre-blending style reflects the region’s disregard for conventional boundaries
• Logic — Grew up in Gaithersburg, MD (DMV), became one of the highest-selling rappers in America
• Cordae — Maryland-raised rapper whose thoughtful, lyrical approach has earned Grammy nominations and critical acclaim

Cannabis Retail as Cultural Space

What makes DC’s cannabis culture distinct from other legal markets is how deeply it is embedded in existing cultural institutions. In Colorado, dispensaries are retail stores. In DC, they are cultural venues:

• Embers (Adams Morgan) is simultaneously a glass shop, record store, art gallery, and dispensary
• Legacy DC (Shaw) operates as an immersive art gallery
• The BOX (14th Street) is an LGBTQ+-affirming cannabis space
• Crank Corner (7th Street) connects cannabis to go-go culture through its name and identity

This cultural integration is partly a consequence of the Harris Rider. Because DC cannot create a standard commercial cannabis framework, the industry has grown organically within existing cultural spaces rather than in purpose-built dispensary formats. The result is a cannabis market that feels more like a cultural movement than a retail sector.

The Bigger Picture

DC’s cannabis-music connection is not incidental. Both go-go and hip-hop emerged from Black communities that were simultaneously creating these art forms and being criminalized for cannabis possession. The ACLU data — 91% of marijuana arrests targeting Black residents — describes the same communities that produced Chuck Brown, Wale, and the go-go tradition. Legalizing cannabis in DC was, in part, an act of cultural recognition: the communities that created this city’s music should not be arrested for the plant that has always been part of it.