Watch “The Real DC: Go-Go & Ben’s” Official Music Video Here

93.9 WKYS Featured Video

Source: @jeffondigital / Radio One Digital

The “Home of the Original Half Smoke” Ben’s Chili Bowl, over the past 63 years, has had the honor of welcoming countless guests, who are now considered family! With all the ups and downs the company had experienced, they’ve always showed a lot of love to our community.

In recent years, Ben’s Chili Bowl thought it would be nice to do a Ben’s song that reflects the true spirit of DC culture, and as ideas were being tossed around, many friends and guests reminded them that two things are integral parts of DC: Go-Go and Ben’s.

Kamal and Nizam started writing the lyrics about Ben’s and the things that made DC unique to its longtime residents, and then they teamed up with a few local Go-Go artists and musicians (DJ Mello T, Roy Battle, Doug Crowley, Sydney Battle), so the result of this collaboration is our new song, “The Real DC: Go-Go and Ben’s”

Statement from Ben’s Chili Bowl:

“Once the song was recorded, we thought it would be fun to do a DC Community-based video to showcase local aspects of DC. Soon after, Vida was at Ben’s U Street and happened to meet two young guys (T.L and Mike) standing in line to order. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that they had a film production company called Mecca Films. They asked if there might be any opportunities for their company to work with Ben’s. Vida loved their personalities and immediately thought of a music video. The idea of supporting a young DC company fit perfectly with the spirit of the project, and before long a video was created. We chose June 13th to release the song and video to kick off Juneteenth week and celebrate Ben Ali’s 95th birthday. We are dedicating this song and video to our founder, Ben Ali, and to legendary hip-hop music producer Chucky Thompson, two beloved individuals who have contributed to our beautiful city. Chucky Thompson, as you all know, was one of the kindest, most talented human beings who came from DC and touched the world with his creativity. He so lovingly returned to Ben’s to be a part of our video. Sadly, only a few months later, he unexpectedly passed. We want to THANK our wonderful DC family for making this song and video possible! We hope this song makes you want to dance when you hear it. Also, we hope it inspires you to dream big and to be yourself as Ben and Chucky did. Ben always said: Be Yourself…Be Original!”

All profits from downloads of “The Real DC: Go-Go & Ben’s” will be donated to The Ben’s Chili Bowl Foundation to give back to the community.

Watch the video below:

Get Breaking News & Exclusive Contest in Your Inbox: