D.C.’s homegrown music genre, go-go, is about to become the official music of the District.

Mayor Muriel Bowser plans to sign legislation to that effect Wednesday. The afternoon bill-signing at Culture House DC (formerly Blind Whino) will include a concert featuring DJ Supa Dan and the Back Yard Band.

The bill means more than symbolic titling. It requires the mayor’s office to implement programs to “support, preserve, and archive Go-Go music and its history.” The D.C. Council unanimously approved the measure on Feb. 4 and sent it to Bowser for final approval.

Wednesday’s signing and celebration follow nearly a year’s worth of activism around go-go that began last April, when the owner of a MetroPCS store in Shaw was forced to stop playing loud go-go music from speakers outside his store. Music fans and anti-gentrification activists quickly rallied around the store and organized a series of outdoor concerts and protests using the hashtag #DontMuteDC.

Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie introduced the go-go legislation in June, and the nationally televised BET Awards kicked off with a tribute to go-go and #DontMuteDC. The October hearing for McDuffie’s bill brought dozens of artists and activists to the D.C. Council to testify on go-go’s significance and the importance of preserving black culture in Washington.

Many members of the council, as well as Bowser, voiced strong support of the genre in the wake of #DontMuteDC movement. But go-go musicians and fans haven’t always garnered that type of official approval. In the 1990s and 2000s, D.C. officials attempted to tamp down go-go culture based on the idea that its concerts often bred violence. The D.C. Council passed curfew laws and issued liquor board violations, and police increased their presence around go-go venues.

Go-go is an offshoot of funk that incorporates syncopated polyrhythms and Afro-Latin beats. Bands usually feature conga drums, cowbell, guitar, base and a lead singer that incorporates the audience into the music using call and response. D.C. native Chuck Brown is known as the “Godfather of Go-Go” — he mentored countless local musicians throughout his life, and his 1979 hit “Bustin’ Loose” is still regularly played at Washington Nationals games. The D.C. Public Library has an extensive go-go archive that features audio recordings, concert flyers and posters, and other genre ephemera.

When go-go gets the official go-ahead on Wednesday, it will join the long list of D.C.’s other Official State Somethings: State rose (American Beauty), state bird (wood thrush), state stone (Potomac Bluestone), state tree (scarlet oak), state fruit (cherry) and state dinosaur (Capitalsaurus). Local Girl Scouts are currently lobbying to make the little brown bat D.C.’s official state mammal, and statehood activists are currently lobbying to make the District an actual state.

This story first published on WAMU.