The familiar “DaDaDa, DaDaDa” of the SportsCenter theme has alerted sports fans for decades that a touchdown or home run highlight is on the way.

But now, thanks to legendary D.C. band Trouble Funk, fans are getting go-go along with slam dunks.

On Monday night, Trouble Funk’s re-imagining of the famed theme song debuted as a part of the new D.C.-based midnight SportsCenter hosted by Montgomery County native Scott Van Pelt.

“[We] were set on the go-go flavor, D.C.-style,” Trouble Funk frontman “Big” Tony Fisher tells DCist. “So, we slowed this thing up a little bit, put it in the pocket, and associate that meat, that ‘DaDaDa, DaDaDa,’… with what we do. It turned out pretty good. It was definitely something different.”

In January, anchor Scott Van Pelt announced the midnight version of ESPN’s SportsCenter (which he’s hosted since 2015) was moving from Bristol, Connecticut, to a studio near Farragut Square. The longtime anchor said he wanted to be closer to his home and family — and he also mentioned that he really wanted a band he listened to growing up to be involved.

“My hope was that we could get Trouble Funk to do the music. I said it more like wishing out loud more than anything,” Van Pelt tells DCist. “Because the world is goofy sometimes in a beautiful way, I got a note not long after from Big Tony himself saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’d love to do something.’”

Fisher formed Trouble Funk in 1978 and helped popularize go-go music both in D.C. and nationwide — most recently with a 2018 performance at NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert. He says he didn’t actually hear about Van Pelt’s request until others started calling to tell him about it. But after talking to the 54-year-old sports anchor, he realized how much of a fan Van Pelt was of Trouble Funk and go-go music.

“He’s pretty down with go-go. He told me a couple of stories when he was younger about him and his crew coming to see us all the time back in the day, the 80s,” says Fisher, 60. “I was like ‘Wow, you are one of those white boys that was over in the corner.’”

Van Pelt and Fisher collaborated for several months to create the perfect harmony between the well-known television theme song and the funky tunes of go-go. Overall, Fisher says it took him about two to three months to compose and produce the piece, which he had to do mostly over the phone due to an accident that left him bedridden during this time. They recorded the song at Bias Studios in Springfield, Virginia, earlier this summer.

Van Pelt knows the music may not be familiar to everyone watching SportsCenter, but that’s okay.

“If you don’t know what it is, but your head’s bopping and thinking that’s funky, maybe you are wondering what it was and who’s that?” says Van Pelt. “But anybody that’s even remotely familiar with that sound instantly knows that sort of cowbell sound of the drumbeat and that telltale sound of go-go music.”

Fisher is working on a new album with Trouble Funk, which he says will be out next year.

He says that showing off his band’s wide array of skills to a wider audience is something that they always love to do.

“It definitely shows the versatility of Trouble Funk. [We’ve] always been a funk group that happens to play go-go,” says Fisher. “And every time we do something different, it definitely wins over more fans.”

SportsCenter airs weekdays at midnight on ESPN.