“D.C. culture has influenced my whole life,” says musician Malik Stewart, better known as Malik DOPE Drummer. At the 2019 Folklife Festival’s D.C. Music Preservation Pop-Up, he led a percussion workshop to an actively participating audience and proved how past histories and sounds, such as the rhythmic foundation of go-go music, can influence the present, such as bounce beat and young artists like Malik himself. 

The workshop was hosted by the DC Punk and Go-Go Archives, projects of the DC Public Library, the People’s University. Both archives actively seek to present dynamic local artists to share the history and culture that is Washington, D.C.