Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm CDT
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On Saturday, September 16, DJ Soul Sister of New Orleans will throw the 17th edition of her now-legendary, annual birthday party shows (open to the public), a tradition at Tipitina’s. Each year’s Birthday Jam features a different artist or theme. This year Soul Sister presents “D.C. Go-Go in the N.O.,” the second Birthday Jam show to spotlight a pioneering artist of go-go, the indigenous, funk-based music of Washington, D.C., which Soul Sister has loved and championed since first hearing it played on New Orleans radio in the 1980s. Representing the go-go sound will be Washington, D.C.’s own legendary E.U. featuring Sugar Bear.
In the 1980s, E.U. (Experience Unlimited) was one of the first, top bands of the massive wave of go-go in D.C.. Today they are pioneering elder statesmen of go-go, a unique genre of dance-friendly music featuring call-and-response vocals, and a large-scale band with percussion section highlighted by conga drums. Featured in the nine-piece E.U. are bassist and leader Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliott, who founded the group in the mid-1970s; veteran E.U. member and go-go drummer William “JuJu” House; and conga drum player Maurice “Mighty Moe” Hagans. While E.U. has been a favorite of D.C. go-go audiences for over four decades, they may be best known outside of DC for “Da Butt,” their Grammy-nominated, Billboard #1 R&B chart hit from 1988, also featured in Spike Lee’s School Daze film.
In 2021, Sugar Bear received the LEGEND Award from the Chuck Brown Foundation, in honor of “Godfather of Go-Go” Chuck Brown. (In 2016, Soul Sister’s Birthday Jam featured the Chuck Brown Band of Washington, D.C.)
DJ Soul Sister will open the night with a set especially for dancers who have enjoyed her parties, events, and WWOZ FM Soul Power shows in her native New Orleans for the past 25+ years.
Free birthday desserts will be available for all guests, while they last.
A native of New Orleans, Soul Sister has hosted her Soul Power show on WWOZ FM New Orleans for 25+ years, and has hosted internationally-aired radio programs on Sonos Radio and Worldwide FM, among others.
As a performance DJ, she is the first to win New Orleans' prestigious Big Easy Entertainment Award for "Best DJ." She has also performed everywhere from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Voodoo Music Experience, Essence Music Festival (mainstage DJ 2008-2010), BUKU Music & Art Project, Jam Cruise, Boiler Room, and Electric Forest. Soul Sister has opened for many of her favorite artists like George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, The Roots, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, DaM-FunK, Average White Band, George Duke, Teena Marie, Doug E. Fresh, ConFunkShun, Switch, the funky Meters, Dumpstaphunk, Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers, Soul Rebels, Lettuce, Tower of Power, and more; and has also performed alongside DJ artists/producers such as Questlove, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Mannie Fresh, KON, Maseo (De La Soul), Low Down Loretta Brown (Erykah Badu), Rich Medina, Biz Markie, and others. She was even personally invited by George Clinton to DJ his 71st birthday party. Music artist Solange called her “wonderful” and “life given,” and dj artist King Britt said she was “the best…top 3 DJs for me.”
Soul Sister's mission is to share music, and is equally dedicated to educating about music, both as a writer/researcher and as a university lecturer.
Sugar Bear attended Ballou High School in Southeast DC where he played football and boxed. He got together with a group of musicians and put together a band named The Rebels, who won Ballou’s best new group award. The band’s name changed from The Rebels to The Young Hustlers to Experience Unlimited (E.U.) – inspired by The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Are You Experienced”. After opening for the legendary Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers at the Panorama Room in Southeast DC, Bear noted “People liked us, but they wouldn’t dance so Chuck Brown pulled me to the side and said ‘Son, you have a lot of great talent, but you have to play what the people want to hear’. We stayed around and watched the set and I was amazed at the call and response! The whole place was jumping for two hours straight and that day, I learned what the Go-Go music scene was all about..” That following Monday, E.U. rehearsed and changed their entire format to a Go-Go.
In 1988, one song took E.U. from a local band to a globally known name: Da Butt, a Grammy nominated hit which reached #1 on the Billboard Black Singles Chart, and was ranked #61 on VH1's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s. The music video was directed by Spike Lee. E.U. received Soul Train award for Best New Artist in 1988 and performed on the Soul Train show, as well as on the Arsenio Hall show.. A Tour with Run DMC followed, as well as a tour with Salt-N-Pepa, with whom he collaborated with on “Shake Your Thang”. An OSU tour took the band around the world. 2 additional Billboard charting hits “Buck Wild” and “Taste of Your Love” came from their Virgin records debut album.
Sugar Bear and E.U. continued a top the DC Go-Go scene over the years that followed, building a large and loyal fan base while releasing local hits like “Umm Bop Bop”. In 2001, EU was a featured act in the Put Your Hands Up The Tribute to Chuck Brown DVD, cited as “..quite possibly the greatest live concert video/dvd I have ever seen” by Murder Dog Magazine. In 2014 Sugar Bear was featured as lead vocal on “Pop That Trunk” on the posthumous Chuck Brown “Beautiful Life” album. In 2016, EU performed at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In 2019, during the #DontMuteDC campaign, DC native and movie star Regina Hall brought out Sugar Bear & E.U. and Rare Essence to perform. During the 93rd Academy Awards, actress Glenn Close shouted out Sugar Bear and danced to the song “Da Butt”. In 2021 The Chuck Brown Foundation presented Sugar Bear with the LEGEND award. In 2022 EU released a remake of their classic “Peace Gone Away”.
Sugar Bear is grateful for the career he has been blessed with and gives all glory and honor to God “who makes everything possible.” Still grounded in his Christian foundation, Sugar Bear believes in the biblical principle stated in Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” Because of this, he gives back daily to his students at T.C. Williams High School where he serves as a dedicated Special Education instructor. With a heart for uplifting people in his life and through his music and a dedication to the music born in DC that he loves, Sugar Bear and E.U. continue to keep the dance floor packed.
