Atlantica - 01.09.2007, Page 32

30 a t l a n t i c a
washington, dca
Sharon JoneS, a small, thick black woman with
piercing eyes and lungs like a bullhorn, paces onto
the stage with all the pomp and circumstance of
a foreign dignitary. The Dap Kings, her band clad
in smart pinstripe suits, begins to churn out a
beguiling groove. She radiates heat and frenetic
song into the audience gathered for a night of
soul and funk at the cozy Black Cat nightclub on
14th Street in the city’s U Street corridor.
“Bush, we tired of yo’ lies!” she launches her
words out like a Baptist preacher and is answered
with cheers.
“You got our people being killed ev’y day! I’m
gon’ get the Dap Kings together and we gon’ ride
up to the White House. I’m gon’ knock on the
do’…” She vehemently thrusts her fist in the air in
a black power salute while a snare drum punctu-
ates her knocks.
“Ev’y American in the US of A is gon’ say we
ain’t gon’ pay no mo’ taxes!” The crowd explodes
with shouts and applause. Ms. Jones is preaching
to the choir.
It seems every man, woman, and child inside
the Capital Beltway has something to say when it
comes to politics, and deep in the funk and jazz
lounges, clubs, rock shows and hip-hop concerts
on U Street is no exception.
U Street in northweSt waShington is a cultural
cocktail popular among trendsetters and adven-
turous bar hoppers, although its roots are firmly
planted in its heritage as the black Broadway of
the 1920s and 30s. Jazz legends Duke Ellington
and Pearl Bailey were locals, and regulars includ-
ed Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Billie
Holiday at venues like Bohemian Caverns, which
still features jazz shows. After the 1950s the area
sunk into disrepair, hitting a low point in 1968
when the corridor became ground zero for riot-
ing that broke out after Martin Luther King, Jr.
was assassinated.
Today U Street remains a vibrant area of town
attracting first and foremost DC’s fervent music
fans of all manners and colors, from punks and
hipsters to jazz enthusiasts and hip-hoppers. After
shows the crowds migrate in droves to Ben’s Chili
Bowl, which proudly proclaims itself the only
ground sacred enough to remain unscathed dur-
ing the riots. Since 1958 the Bowl has served up
southern delights like chilidogs and half-smoke
sausages. Inside there is a sense of shared hunger
and shared space among the disparate tribes sit-
ting on red vinyl stools in a row, all eager for their
dogs and cheese fries.
But after the show, I can’t stomach the south
so close to bedtime, so my fellow show-goer asks,
“Could you handle a cupcake?”
“Any time of day,” I reply.
We make for CakeLove, a late-night bakery for
the U Street sweet tooth. Founded by a lawyer
for the Department of Health, Warren Brown,
who had had enough of both law and health,
CakeLove is not only the ex-lawyer’s business ven-
ture but also his contribution to society, dedicated
to “bringing people better cake.” Brown’s love of
all things baked shines through in his lively experi-
mentations like lime buttercream frosting and
my favorite, the Cynthia’s Sin cake, with candied
peanuts and chocolate mousse. No knob of butter
nor drop of cream is spared. Though you’ll not
find any collard greens or chitterlings here (you’ll
have to go down the street to Henry’s for that)
there is plenty of soul in this food.
After an evening of good music and good cake
I feel that DC does have some moments of har-
mony among the boarded-up houses, bulletproof-
glass storefronts, and politician heckling. But you
can’t help but be aware of the luxury condomini-
ums and designer shoe stores encroaching on the
corridor. Like any civic diamond in the rough,
gentrification is inevitable as the tides of white
flight have turned and yuppies from the suburbs
flood the city anew. Unfortunately, mixing with
the locals is not always on their agenda. While
the physical proximity narrows, the social gulf
widens.
“Can yoU believe all that ‘taxation without rep-
resentation’ whining? Those people who elected
Marion Barry [the black mayor of DC arrested
for smoking crack then reelected after being
released from prison in the 90s] don’t deserve to
vote.” These were the words recently spoken to
Samantha Spinney, a 27-year-old schoolteacher,
while at a party of the freshest batch of young,
elite DC nobility in the mainly white, affluent
neighborhood of Cleveland Park, among the ulti-
mate bungalows and houses designed by I.M. Pei.
Other utterances delivered during the highbrow
merrymaking included, “They’ll be washing my
car” and a host of proclamations beginning with
“When we run the country…”. Spinney was hor-
rified.
“I couldn’t believe that people actually said
these things,” Spinney confides to me over