TGRI x Rock Creek Social’s Good Life Tuesdays Party goes down tonight!

Within the next 30 days, True Genius Requires Insanity is getting a massive overhaul to celebrate turning three. The specs for our beefed up and redesigned home are impressive, and I really believe this is going to allow us, the “Hustlers of Culture” at the site the ability to truly push things forward in an exciting new direction while maintaining our previous high standards of honesty and progressive thinking.

Tonight we’re celebrating these great times ahead with our friends at the Rock Creek Social Club and their Good Life Tuesdays signature event. DJ Jerome Baker III has had a magnificent 2010, and his confidence in his talent as a selector is at an all time high. In fact, I’d give credit to this party as well as a select few other 2010 occurrences in taking his skills to the next level and positioning him as a not just being a weeknight DC party kingpin, but a DJ if given the opportunity that can be a top tier East coast party rocker with significant access to national and international prominence.

Philly and LA’s DJ Excel is magnificent. His usual sojourns to the city occur as part of the Cmonwealth sponsored ’90s dance music flashback 95 Live event at Steve’s Bar Room, and whenever he’s in town at that party, it’s usually accompanied with gasps and screams of shock and awe from the crowd at Excel’s depth, range and scope of selections. At an open source party like Good Life Tuesdays, I’m expecting nothing short of an inspirational set of classic and current dance grooves.

Rock Creek Social, much like TGRIOnline takes an aggressive stance in making attempts and inroads in infusing expansive 21st century thinking into a 20th century city. Aware of the potential for social maturation in the city, Rock Creek Social attempts to unify race, culture and society circles of DC’s young and mobile under one roof. At the last event, which was the afterparty of our wildly successful Wale/UCB/Board Administration triple bill cosponsored with I Got It For Free, Scion and JukeboxDC at U Street Music Hall, Wale, UCB’s lead singer Tre, Phil Ade, Moombahton inventor Dave Nada, Rusko’s U Hall date opener DJ Bills, Tabi Bonney’s DJ Stereo Faith and noted local spinner Trevor Martin were ALL in the same room at the same time.

There is no dress code, and you’re likely to get “Pon de Floor,” go “Hard in the Paint,” and possibly get some alternative rock tossed in for your troubles as well. No cover at the door, and a free happy hour from 9:30-10:30. If in any way a supporter of the site, feel free to come out and enjoy yourself!

TGRI RADIO – EPISODE 8 : The DC HIP HOP COVERSATION with SONYA COLLINS!

LISTEN NOW OR VISIT THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF THE SITE!

Sonya Collins? You don’t know who she is? Well, she was formerly the head of DC’s Glass House blog (glasshousedc.com) analyzing music and culture before becoming a brand representative for Arnaud de Brignac champagne in New York City. Successful in that venture, she’s now back in DC. An underrated mind, Sonya, by knowing the pulse of the urban streets of DC like few others, she’s possibly one of the most fertile minds in the city to pick about the state and nature of DC hip hop. I recently had a chance to sit on a panel alongside some of the city’s best and brightest music minds to select the “10 Hottest Rappers in DC,” a video piece which will soon be on the website for DC’s 93.9 WKYS FM radio station. Though not a part of that discussion, Sonya could have easily sat at that table, and likely been of great importance. For 45 minutes, one of my favorite DC people and I discuss one of my favorite DC topics. Definitely take a listen and enjoy!

The Rock Creek Social Club’s "Good Life Tuesday" is the DC underground’s most important new party. Here’s why.

A few unassailable facts about Washington, DC. There is a very real color line and social line that delineates the differences in DC nightlife. Uptown and downtown never party together. The famous U Street that’s going to be the bread and butter point for the next underground generation after hipster? Well, those people almost never party downtown with the stuffier K Street suits crowd. Also, on a larger level, black and white don’t party together. Black folks who enjoy a more urban club experience, like the jiggy glamour of Part at 14th or DJ Quicksilva’s night at Ibiza wouldn’t think of being caught dead at U Street Music Hall or DC9. Same goes for white folks as well who end up at any one of the plethora of K Street spots, Fur or the indie venues like DC9 or U Hall. Attention has been paid to these issues before, but with mixed results that were not maintained. However with the “Rock Creek Social Club’s” new “Good Life Tuesdays” biweekly party at Recess now on the scene, everything is about to change.

One of the key elements that makes this possible for DC is that it’s frankly really fucking small. If you’re an impresario of any scene in DC,and  if you choose to cross over even one line, you’ve almost made your Six Degrees of Separation game incredibly simple and cut out about four degrees in the process. For non-impresarios and revelers, this means that all of the people who inform and create your party choices these days all get along really really well now, and if everybody drops egos, stand to be extremely successful as a unit on par with how the first USA Basketball Dream Team came along and dominated.

Jerome Baker III being the lynchpin to this party is a key boon for the success and vision of uniting all of the disparate cultures of DC’s urban experience in one room, and becomes the point that Jerome goes from being the dude who says nothing and makes money in this city to being a leading identifier of DC culture and putting his theoretical money where his mouth is. Connected to all of the top impresarios of underground culture in the city from Stereo Faith to Will Eastman to working at Stussy on the infamous Cmonwealth and Stussy block on 18th and U Streets, it was a matter of if, not when something major and important as a contribution would come from him.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/14048167?portrait=0

Rock Creek Social Club Presents: Good Life Tuesdays @ Recess DC. from Rock Creek Social Club. on Vimeo.

DOWNLOAD DJ IMPULSE’s “GOOD LIFE” MIX

Next are Modele “Modi” Oyewole and Sonya Collins. A successful and internationally respected blogger with the DCtoBC.com brand, Modi is 24 and up next as a underground/blipster/urban mainstream culture creator. The recent Boston College grad is one to watch and having just finished an internship with Complex Magazine and presently a contributor for drjays.com, both based out of NYC, he brings the legitimacy of being a prodigy with entrenched NYC roots to the table. Sonya, ex of her blog the Glass House (glasshousedc.com) is the heartbeat and pulse of the streets of Washington, DC. One of your favorite people’s favorite people, Sonya is a motivator and friend to urban culture with a knack for motivating the streets. There are a plethora of other collaborators with the party who are equally important as well, those are just the ones presently on my radar.

Last night’s party debut for the Rock Creek Social Club couldn’t have gone any better. Despite a tropical climate from a now fixed air conditioner not working for the early portion of the evening, inaugural event headliner DJ Impulse’s headline set did everything it needed to to give an outline of where the party would succeed. Touching the gulliest of hip hop (Rick Ross’ “BMF”) to the top 40 mainstream (Drake’s “Fancy”) to hipster electro (Major Lazer’s “Pon de Floor” once again proved it’s one of the greatest songs of this generation) and Bmore club (DJ Booman’s “Pick Em Up” crushed the club), the parameters for the initial look of this party melding all scenes has been set. This is a DC party though, and one expecting to draw from all scenes, so the necessary expectation will be that disco, deep house, Moombahton and dubstep will have to be introduced to take this to the next level, and soon, for this not to become just another night out at the club, but just with more of a racial mix than usual.

If you support TGRIOnline.com, you are a supporter of this event, and even further, I’d expect you to swing out on August 31st to the next one. If DC is going to be the cultural leader of the next generation that I expect it to be, this event, in pulling the uptown, downtown, black, white, indie, hipster, underground dance and mainstream jiggy folks together, is the look. This event, because of the individuals involved, can be a showpiece to the world of the new energy coursing through the veins of the up and coming creative class of Washington, DC.

All respect all isn’t just an email signature I often use, but also a key phrase that is a backbone of the next generation. To be ultimately successful, and reach it’s optimal point of success, The Good Life must achieve that. To quote great DC dude DJ Dave Nada, “Lezzzzgo.”