Thievery Corporation’s Eric Hilton Builds an Empire in D.C.

At the Weekly Hate Read, we appreciate a good dose of irony (or is hypocrisy?). Just as long as we're not overcharged for it. Sadly, for our readers in the nation's capital, it does seem that the prices for its liquid form are ticking up. How can it be? Well, as our favorite section in the New York Times reports, one half of the aptly-named DJ collective Thievery Corporation has set up a cartel of unbearably pretentious bars and restaurants in historically African-American neighborhood of Shaw that trade heavily on the clichés and smarm that are the coin of DC's burgeoning yuppie set.

Four of those establishments — the Brixton (a British-style pub), Satellite Room (an “L.A. style dive diner bar”), American Ice Company (rustic Americana) and El Rey (a taqueria) — are within a three-block radius of Montserrat house. Two were abandoned properties, one was a warehouse, the last a vacant lot. 

“I like going to an area that will be hot,” Mr. Hilton said. “I’m just baffled no one saw those abandoned buildings and open land surrounding the 9:30 club,” he added, referring to Washington’s venerable music hall down the block.

Of course, no one "saw" those buildings. Hilton bravely ignored the people around him. (The most recent "abandoned" building under attack is  434-unit public housing complex Barry Farm.) Hailing from Rockville, MD (household income $98,712), he had learned the trade of repackaging "culture" for the kind of jet set Muzak as a DJ:

[...] Mr. Hilton met Rob Garza, and the two began Thievery, an influential electronica act that melded jazzy electronic grooves with bossa nova, hip-hop, Indian rock, reggae and other international beats. Their sound defined a new genre of ambient electronic music, a kind of global soundtrack for the pre-iPod, late-’90s mélange of boutique hotels, cosmopolitan cocktails and colored mood lighting. 

“They have managed to stay successful in electronic music, which can be very fickle,” says Michaelangelo Matos, author of “The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America.” “They haven’t been tied to one sound, they can be a little fungible.”

No doubt Hilton realized that real estate is a "little fungible" as well and the immovable property equivalent of dubstep is just as bankable. No wonder his establishments became Obama administration favorites, blasé after another drone strike:

In 2007 Mr. Hilton opened Marvin, a Belgian-style diner at the intersection of 14th and U Streets in a space that was once a Subway franchise. The area, known in the early- to mid-20th century as Black Broadway for its theaters and restaurants, had just begun to rebound from the riots of the 1960s. Marvin became a favorite of young White House staff members from the first Obama administration. 

“He gave cred to an area that wasn’t going to get cred unless a local came in and understood it, and understood what would work there,” said Kate Glassman Bennett, a White House correspondent for the Independent Journal and a native Washingtonian. “I don’t think any of the stuff around 14th and U would have happened without him.”

Rather than name the restaurant Guantánamo in tribute to his benefactors, he availed himself of Marvin Gaye's memory, while also ignoring the continued existence of African-American people in the neighborhood. As one critic put it, "All are based on some facet of black history, some memory of blackness that feels artificially done and palatable." But let us not be too hard on Mr. Hilton. He did not single-handedly transform Shaw from 25% white in 2000 to 48% in 2010. Plus, he totally gets it, brother:

“I completely appreciate that perspective,” Mr. Hilton said. “When we named the restaurant Marvin, it was to remind people that Marvin Gaye was from D.C.” One bar was called Blackbyrd, for the 1970s-era jazz-funk group led by Donald Byrd, a musician and professor at Howard. (Its name and décor have since changed twice.)

Wikipedia apparently wasn't doing its job of reminding people of Gaye's birthplace. (Just joking, it was.) This is all the more rich since Thievery Corporation took the kind of pan-progressive "it's the system, man" stances endemic to creative "types," especially during the Bush era, penning tracks such as as "Revolution Solution":

The paradox of poverty
Has left us dismayed
Sliding democracy
Washing away

The toil of the many goes
To the fortunate few
The revolution solution
Oh, I've come to join you

If your eyes did not just roll a complete 720 degrees à la Tony Hawk, we can't help you. So much for the Eric Hilton of that era. Now he opens restaurants you can only go with a reservation, though he assures us the great thing is that there's all the types of people still:

“My favorite bar is the Gibson,” he said, referring to a quiet, unmarked speakeasy that he opened two doors over from Marvin in 2008. It is known for its reservation-only policy and Prohibition-era cocktails. 

“There is no really one type of person there,” he said. “You don’t really notice if people are hip or cool or professional exec types or fixed-gear bicycle types. Everyone seems to fit in.”

You could be hip or cool, profession or ride a fixed-gear bike! Amazing. But we're guessing if you tear up the streets of DC with a 21-speed bike, Chipotle might be more your speed.

Eric Hilton understands it if you think he's profiting from the lifeblood of minority communities