New Dimension Band at Nanci Raygun, Richmond, VA
Nanci Raygun, 929 West Grace St, Richmond, VA 23220

I originally planned to go see the New Dimension Band on Saturday night in Norfolk.

However, when the latest email mentioned they would be performing in Richmond on Friday, I leaped at the opportunity. My school workload was heavy for the weekend and the ability to drive to Richmond and back the same night was very helpful. I spoke with Rob Sabbakhan to see if I could interview them that night. He said that would be good, but that it would be better for me to see Saturday's show. The Norfolk show was sold out and would feature two other GoGo bands (UCB and Mumbo Sauce Band) as well. Richmond apparently hasn't given NDB the love they deserve.

Sometime after 5 PM, my roommate Julien (from France), and I headed up to Richmond. I missed a turn in the city, but got directions then looked for a parking space. I ended up parking 10 blocks away - it was very cold.

The cover charge was an extremely reasonable $5. Nanci Raygun is a venue that seems to be more oriented to Punk and Metal than GoGo. The piped in music sounded like Death Metal. The decor had some art paintings, but a lot of painted graffiti, even in the bathrooms, both of which had their doors open. The raised stage was to the left of the front door and there were steps for the audience to sit on. In addition, a 15 foot or so bar was on the left side, parallel to the wall - the venue is narrow. Opposite the bar were a number of benches. Beyond the bar were pool tables and then the bathroom. I also noticed that there was an electrical outlet by the pool table - good for me to record the interview. Most of the people in the bar when I arrived a little before 9 PM were Caucasian. DJ Von set up - they set up a wooden board on two sawhorses and put the DJ equipment on there. There was actually more than one person working the turntables. As the band members arrived around 10 PM, I introduced myself to a number of the members. Rob was already there (and wearing a Maryland sweatshirt) but I didn't recognize him since his picture on the NDB website made him look older than he looked in person. In addition to the band members, a number of fans arrived and sat on the steps. When the band members came in, they greeted the fans and also danced to the music. At one point, Rob came over and asked Julien if he was Jordan. I told him I was. He said that they were only going to do a short set and then we could do the interview.

The line up was: four vocalists (Stephone, Danny, Cool, and Brandi), two keyboard players (a Korg X3 and a Korg N364), a drummer on a raised platform, a guitarist, a bass player and two percussionists. Stephone wore a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He drank beer directly out of a pitcher with a straw - he poured some out into other band member's cups. Before they started performing, he said "W. George W. Bush, that's right I voted for Bush. I don't give a f*ck!" The first song was good, but not locked into the groove yet (i.e. congas). Brandi did a vocal solo. The second song did bring in the congas, but occasionally Lee would just dance directly behind the front line. I enjoyed their set, but wished it were longer. I thought it was interesting that Jamal? switched from guitar to keyboards and later bass. Rob also got on stage and directed and talked a little, he did a shout out to me for coming, which was nice.

I then did a joint interview - I thought the joint interview I did of most of Familiar Faces together was highly successful. I audio recorded the interview with a Marantz analog cassette recorder. My roommate and I drove home right after the interview. I worried later in the weekend when the tape wouldn't play in either of my cassette players and I had to manually rewind it. I ended up getting help from John Loy, the audio engineer at the SFC where I work. He transferred it to CD for me and even raised the levels. The interview transcript is below.

Unfortunately, I am not 100% certain of who is speaking from New Dimension Band in every part of the interview. This interview is not 100% verbatim, but is very close.

Me: Okay, all these questions are for everyone to answer really. First I wanted to start off with: where did you learn to play music?

NDB: Most of us would say church.

Danny: Church.

Lee: Picking up an instrument and starting to play it, know what I'm saying homes?

NDB: Playing in the background. It's a gift, it's a given gift. Church background.

Me: And what made you decide to form a GoGo band?

NDB: Go to Rob with that.

Stephone: I am always talking. This is a band, this is New Dimension, now let everybody, everybody knows what's going on, where it's at man.

Derrick: I wasn't, I wasn't here when it first started, know what I'm saying? I'm like one of those members in here but Stephone, Lee, Cool, (unknown name) and Aaron those are the old heads, they are the old heads in the band. They was mostly here before when the band first started. They formed the GoGo band.

NDB: The Question is when New Dimension Band get started, when did you all get started?

Stephone: I can answer that. We got started about 1997. In '97. It really started before that. He's really one of the last of the original (can't hear) members, him and Jr., but Jr. left early. They started off with a band between VCU and Union, got together with some people from Northern Virginia and Richmond that wanted to had a love for GoGo that wanted it start something. It wasn't for money and it wasn't for... it was basically for enjoyment of the music. They had love for the music and they wanted to start it. And I got together, I got with the group `cause I was working at a record store and the drummer played with one of my managers, they used to gig together and I wanted to start my own band and I met Rob in the record store. He said, "He was `too young'", I'm not going to say "He's too old," he said "hH was too young to be in a band", but he was thinking about doing the managerial part. So from there on, we got together, we got together like a puzzle. This is one of my best friends (Lee), we got a barbershop together, (someone else yells "and me!") he's a congo player. And I met him in church; I met the drummer in church. Me and Cool been doing music together for a minute, we brought him in then we brought, he brought Vinnie in. Then Vinnie brought Derrick in. Then we met Eric, he goes to Union, we brought him in. We needed a bass player that sound `cause he's been doing marching band stuff, brought him in, he plays the keys now, he brought Brian (not sure of name). So it's like like a big family, it's all a family. And where Brandi?

Lee: Brandi!

Stephone: Right here, she's our singer, Cool brought, he brought her in. So it's like all a big family connection. It shouldn't even be called New Dimension Band; it should be called New Dimension Family. So you know that's how we're doing today.

Me: Yeah, what was that group hug you were doing before you?

Stephone: Every, before every show we like to have a prayer and just like it's like a game plan game plan huddle, we get together get all our stuff together, motivate everybody and Dirtie (Derrick) says a prayer and we go ahead and roll.

Me: And what do you see as your future, for the band I mean?

Stephone: Somebody else, I'm answering all the questions.

Derrick: You can't look into the future, you've got to go day by day, you know what I'm saying; take one day at a time.

NDB: Hopefully, we become one of the greatest of all time.

Rob: Region, in the region.

Stephone: We're trying GoGo to, we're want to be the band that like... GoGo is a very, it's like a 3-state city type of music.

Rob: Region.

Stephone: Region-wide. He went to UVA, region.

NDB: Laughter.

Stephone: So it's like Maryland, DC and Virginia, Northern Virginia. But a lot of bands want to take it, a couple of bands that took it national. Well we want to, I think every band now in DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia has the same goal, they want to take it nationwide but no one feels it's all about us, like a tradition. That they would be going against the grain to take it national. But in Richmond, we feel we have an edge. A lot of us have a background in music, so we want to be one of, one of the groups to take it national. We don't just, we don't just play GoGo, we can play R&B, like we have singers in the band. We have, we can do a Jazz show with just musicians. You want a Hip Hop show; we can do a Hip Hop show. We also do weddings, Bar Mitzvahs...

NDB: Laughter.

Stephone: Family reunions, gatherings, everything, we can do it all. Everybody in here is a musician, not just in the band, but outside...

Me: So how often do you play?

Stephone: We're playing now at least like two, three times a month, but we're trying to get to... It's hard to play every week, have a regular spot down in Richmond because Richmond is not know for GoGo, but we're trying to bring the closet GoGo lovers out. I think Nanci Raygun can possibly be one of our big spots; we've been play here for a couple of weeks. As far as the playing part, you should talk to our manager.

Rob: We pick our shows kind of carefully, `cause we like to spread them out. We talk about our base here in Richmond, but our reach goes out to all corners of Virginia you know. Try to get up to DC when that's possible. But we pick the shows sparingly. We might only play like three shows a month, but when we do those shows, we want to make them big, so that people can remember those shows. Not just a lot bands back home in DC they're playing three or four times a week, it gets redundant after a while. But that's the advantage of us doing our shows so infrequent that the shows are more meaningful. You know, you get to promote them more.

Me: Yeah, I went to a show at Mayo Island.

Rob: Yeah, that. Was it Mayo Island or Brown's Island?

Me: It was Mayo Island.

Rob: How old was it?

Me: It was Junkyard (Band), Beenie Man, Backyard (Band), and Trouble Funk.

Rob: Yeah, you got a lot of other promoters doing shows, not just in Richmond, central Virginia, but around the area. We land on a few of those shows, but for the most part, New Dimension our forte is not just a band, we enjoying doing our own shows, we put out our own shows. That's one of the reasons why I'm talking about we only play three times a month because we're doing our own shows. We can't do three or four times a week doing our own shows, we'd have to rely on other promoters. There are other promoters doing GoGo, not as much as maybe five years ago, but like the show you mentioned, you know they're still doing them. And we try to get on as many as possible.

Me: So are you and Mumbo Sauce Band the only GoGo bands in Virginia?

Rob: Negative. Right now, I would estimate, you have to include Northern Virginia in it, there are probably a minimum of ten or fifteen. But we're obviously the most known band in Virginia because of our reach like I mentioned. We play all over Virginia, we have more exposure. But there's a band down in Lynchburg, believe it or not, by the name of DIB, Down in the Basement. There's a band out of Woodbridge, First Impression, Stafford-Woodbridge. There's a couple of other bands sprouting up, they've seen the success we've had, the moderate success we've had you know, so they're trying to do their thing. Believe it or not there are a few bands trying to make a name in Virginia.

Me: And so what do DC fans think of you?

Rob: That's a good question. You know the attitude; you're only as good as your last show. A lot of the DC crowd because we don't play that often in DC, they see us down here with the college students, so it's kind of a mixed thing.

NDB: They love us!

Rob: They love us...

Stephone: I got to intervene. Actually a lot of the DC bands, the ones that really count like the top top bands have respect for us because we don't... because in DC a lot of bands mimic other bands, older bands. We don't really mimic a lot of bands in DC and they respect us for that. For not trying to be like other bands, we kind of have our own style. That's why we came up with the name New Dimension; we're actually like a new dimension of GoGo. It's different, we're kind of different. What' they're doing, we try to look at what they're doing over there, we try to do something different instead of the same GoGo sets, you know what I mean.

Rob: I think the key thing is they respect us, but what we're doing, we're doing something that probably some people thought never was possible: we're doing GoGo in this region and having good success at it. But at the same token we have a lot of mixed, negative feelings: people that don't necessarily like GoGo going outside the Beltway. And they're automatically prejudiced: a lot of them haven't even seen us. "Ah, nah, New Dimension, Richmond, no, no, no." But the ones that have actually seen us, like the Richmond college students, once they actually see us, you see their whole perception change. That's the thing I've found interesting over the years with the band down here.

Me: And how often do you all attend performances of other GoGo bands?

NDB: All the time.

NBD: All the time, you got to be a fan of the music. You've got to be a fan of GoGo first, #1. Then we're entertainers with a GoGo band, #2. You always got be a GoGo fan. That's like doing homework and research. That's paying homage to the bands who came before us. Got to be a student of the music, a big fan. You're always a fan.

Me: And a general GoGo question. Do you feel that GoGo serves a purpose other than entertainment?

Lee: Yeah. Definitely, GoGo's like a culture. Like you have Hip Hop, you have Rap. You know Hip Hop's a culture; Rap's a music that comes out of Hip Hop culture. GoGo's a culture. You can see a t-shirt, you can be in Florida and if you see a Madness t-shirt or a HOBO t-shirt, you know where that person got that t-shirt: in DC. You know they go to the GoGo. So you know GoGo it's like a culture, it's got its own slang, its own dance, its own fashion. GoGo' big, it definitely serves a purpose. If it's from DC you can definitely tell, GoGo is a culture. He can co-sign for me, he's from DC. It's more than just entertainment, definitely.

Me: What is it about GoGo that makes it so popular?

Lee: The beat man. `Cause first of all, it's the rhythms it's the beat, it's the closest thing we have to like African music. Plus when you're a young buck, you're growing up, sometimes you can't get into the clubs, you're not old enough, but GoGo's at rec. centers, community centers, all the communities that your parents, people that you go. And you feel safe because it's within the community. So sometimes that's the first time you meet a girl at the GoGo you know and sometimes that sticks with you. And that's how I feel.

Derrick: Especially as a child, I found that a lot of my peers and fans from the DC metropolitan area they like instruments. And when you can get some live instruments together and people just sit there and have fun with it; that's where it starts. And I mean they gave us a chance, they gave me a chance to actually learn and incorporate me having fun with the music.

NDB: Instruments.

Derrick: GoGo music is live music. It's actually live, it's not off of a track, it's not off a record, you know so you not going to sit there and have a scratching. You got a live band, you got feelings and people put all of their emotions into it.

NDB: Synthesizers.

Derrick: GoGo can make you feel happy, GoGo can make you feel sad, and GoGo can make you feel that you want to fight. It just happens and it's all emotions.

Me: And how do you define GoGo?

Derrick: How do I define GoGo: living life.

Lee: Good answer.

Me: What instrumentation do you think a GoGo band should have to be considered a GoGo band?

NDB: Answer that.

Eric: Excuse me a second. (Laughter from the rest of the group.) Deals with drums basically, percussions, so the bass drum, and the Congos, timbales, cowbells (said together with another band member), tambourine bells, xylophones, anything. The whole nine basically... but it starts with the percussion section and that's basically it the percussion, but then you can just add anything you want to, to be creative.

Stephone: He's a music major at Union.

Derrick: I'm a music major at Virginia State University.

Me: Do you think that all music played by GoGo bands is GoGo?

NDB: No.

NDB: No.

Me: Do you think of GoGo as Southern Music?

NDB: No, area. It's metropolitan.

Stephone: It's metropolitan music. If someone would hear you they'd probably want to get you right now. (Laughter) No, but no, It's really like metropolitan music. It's metropolitan: it's Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia, and that's it.

NDB: Mid-Atlantic.

Stephone: Outside of that...

NDB: There is no outside of that.

Stephone: Out of the beltway. Outside of that, they don't really like us. Beyond that, those 3 places that live, eat, sleep...

NDB: East coast, mid-Atlantic.

NDB: And he (Rob) has on a Maryland sweatshirt and he's a UVA graduate, what a sellout!

Me: Plus Maryland's playing UVA in football tomorrow!

NDB: Laughter.

Me: I'm a Maryland grad, so...

NDB: Laughter.

Rob: They've got a game tomorrow, but we've got a show, that's more important.

Me: What do you think has to be done for the tradition of GoGo to be maintained?

NDB: Keep going stepping the game up.

NDB: Personality.

Stephone: Everybody got to step it up; we got to take it to another level. A lot of the bands are mimicking the older bands; got to take it to a new emotion, that's GoGo.

Lee: It's like bands got to come in and try to change the game. It's like they have to have that attitude that they're going to be #1, they're going to be different, and they're going to go kill it every time. And that's the only way to keep it going is to not re-invent the wheel, but take the wheel this next step further. `Cause the wheel's already there, it's been going on for twenty, thirty years. So it's not going to, you know to be too much new, but it's just that coming in that little new form, that new dimension, ha ha, no pun intended.

Stephone: You got it, New Dimension.

Rob: Yeah, a lot of the bands, from (word?) earlier ten or fifteen years, bands kind of get caught up in the you know the problems of just let me have two, three, four shows a week you know in the area. They get so wrapped up in the show aspect they're not really looking at the bigger picture. I think so much more could have been done in the last decade that hasn't been done. You know but it's in part because of that, you know people are just concentrating on the day-to day, how do I get this money for the show, you know, locally. Instead of thinking how well how can I spread this music you know down South or wherever else.

Danny: And I think man, Rob, I think that another aspect of New Dimension from different bands in the DC area: all of us are professionals outside of this. Like we said before, we don't do this for money we are professionals: we got people who are entrepreneurs, people who work for the city, we have teachers, we have college students, people who are well-rounded individuals. So that kind of makes us different, you know. We don't gig every week, we've got jobs, we have mouths to feed. We have followers here, you know kids who I am saying, `cause we do a lot not just for our families, but our communities. (Unknown word) company, a barbershop company, people depend on these people, people depend on me. You know so that's another part of GoGo that you may not see, but we are professional outside of this, for real. So you bring that to the table on the stage, you know that makes us so much different from everybody, because we playing...

NDB: That's what ties it in as GoGo being a culture.

Stephone: Yeah.

NDB: Definitely, because it's an extra sense people don't see, but it's all there though.

Stephone: Yeah, `cause like he's a student, he's a teacher, he's a student, we're entrepreneurs: we have a barbershop together, he works for the city, and he's a student. It's all a bunch of students that people try to do things that.... One thing that our manger often often strives on is a lot of community stuff. Like we do a lot of stuff, we try to do a lot stuff with the community. And like everybody you basically saw here tonight was family. And it gets to the point where really family doesn't even really pay to come see us no more, it's family, they come because they got love for us. You got several people, like there that's HOBO Bo; he's one of our biggest fans...

Rob: He comes all the way from Fredericksburg.

Stephone: Like they come all the way from Fredericksburg to see us, you can't really call them fans. We've don't believe in the fan thing, it's a family. Everybody here is family.

Me: So what do you think about the cover phenomenon? In DC, some of the top groups they just try play...

Rob: L!ssen.

Me: ...what's on the radio.

Stephone: That's what kind of stuff separates us a lot of bands from DC, because we got a lot of people in the band that just don't do GoGo. Like he's a producer, he does a lot of production for Rap, I'm a rapper, he does production, and a couple of other members of the band are rappers and production, like a singer, he also sings, he produces and directs. We strive on... Yeah he's like he does plays, he's an actor. We strive on originality. Like we might, like the Nelly song on the radio for instance the Nelly song if we decided to play that song, we might take the music part, but we would change it in a sense, there would be a center to it, but we would do our own original words or raps and would probably end up with our own original keys and stuff. And just a lot of bands in DC take the covers and repeat the raps... And we're music's universal... is an art, to us it's like we're Hip Hoppers, we started as a Hip Hop band, so that's kind of like biting, you know what I mean?

Me: Yeah.

Stephone: So we, we got to do... you'll never hear us repeat no one else's lyrics, we do our own lyrics. All of them, everything.

NDB: Top to bottom.

Stephone: Yeah, do our own stuff.

Me: And what do you think about the way PA tapes are sold?

Stephone: That's GoGo. That's GoGo. Like a lot of people have as far as in the Rap industry they sell at a lot of mom and pop stores, in the GoGo industry you have you make your CDs and your tapes and sell them in the like places like PA Palace, or ah Take Me Out to the GoGo, a lot of places that (can't tell phrase) he's like a GoGo phenomenon. Big Butch comes to a lot shows and sells tapes. So that's a lot of, that's like our mom and pop stores. You know and people sell I mean its some tapes that are probably selling 100,000 copies, but you would never get... I mean we do barcode sometimes if we do have actual industry CDs like that one out in the studio, but GoGo's really like real underground. So it's like kind of like a secret society in a way.

Me: So often should you put out a commercial...

Stephone: Well, I mean our goal, we try to put one out every once a year or once a two or three years, but a lot of GoGo's really geared to live performance. Because you can get a CD, you can hear it, but you can't a lot of people who don't really know about GoGo have better respect for it when they see it live.

Lee: GoGo's something that you have to experience because it's all about that live aspect. There's a couple of dimensions to GoGo, you can hear it on a tape, you can even see it on a video, but it's nothing like going to a GoGo experiencing yourself with that crowd, being with that crowd in a venue.

NDB: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

Me: What defines a good performance?

Lee: What defines a good performance? A good performance is all like it's a group effort, everyone puts their group, you know what I'm saying, inputs in. And it's like everyone's their own producer, you know what I'm saying, so when you put your inputs in, and I mean you do your little thing, you play your role, it comes out as one musical form. You know what I'm saying, so it's all a pattern. You put the pattern together and make it fit right and it's going to be a musical sound. You know what I mean, so you get the sound together and you get the rhythm going and it's going to be a party. That's how the music gets formed.

Me: And how do you define Pockets & Sockets?

Lee: Ha, ha. I'm going to tell you man, a pocket, yeah, you know what I mean, a pocket's like a laid back, a two-step thing, you know what I mean. If you want to warm up before you get to the party, you come to the party, you know what I mean, you come in to the hood, and you just want to go to the bar, grab a drink and then warm up, look at the girls, and see the girls in the place, you know what I mean, you lean back, get the two-step going. Then when the socket come on, that when the party come on, that's when the music gets hyped!

Stephone: I'm going to cut you off because he one of our biggest... I told you we don't call them fans, we call them family; he comes all the way from Fredericksburg. We can play in West Bumchuck Louisiana him and his friend will be there. He's a fan of GoGo as a whole. He's a good person to talk to.

HOBO Bo: GoGo is NDB. If it's NDB it's GoGo. GoGo is something where you work hard all day long...

Stephone: Yup.

HOBO Bo: come home and party. Stressed out with your people, go to the GoGo, relieve some stress. You get NDB, you got a party. You got GoGo real, you got NDB.

Stephone: Sure.

HOBO Bo: If it's like that, everything everything. Life is life; live it to the fullest. I'm young, and with NDB you only get it once.

Me: Alright, well that's all of my questions, is there something more you want to say or ask me?

Stephone: Naw, I appreciate you're coming down, I want to shake your hand, I appreciate your coming down...

Me: Yeah, he's he's (Julien) from even farther, he's from France...

Stephone: Oh what's going on man?

Julien: Laughs.

Stephone: Yeah, we appreciate your coming down, and I appreciate your coming down and interviewing us and on behalf of me and the rest of the band we appreciate it and look forward to doing more stuff with you. You come down here and we'll party with you, we'll be there. Alright.

Me: Alright, thanks! I appreciate it.

Stephone: Alright man. (To Julien): What's your name?

Julien: Julien.