I had no idea where I was going.

That’s a bit of an overstatement. But my preparation for the opportunity to attend the White House’s celebration of the blues and hear First Lady Michelle Obama speak and listen to artists Shemika Copeland, Keb Mo, and Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews give their take of the blues through performance and interview lacked something. I packed my suitcase and reviewed the itinerary; I knew what we were doing, but I could only excitedly anticipate the outcome. What did organizer Bob Santelli expect to get when mixing teenagers and the blues together in a beaker, with a trip to the White House thrown in as a free radical?

From the first speech, event moderator Santelli emphasized the blues’ primal and spiritual nature, its development from the work chants of slaves to a sophisticated art form. First Lady Obama characterized the essence of the blues in her opening remarks Tuesday afternoon.

“The blues is deeply human.” First Lady Obama said, “It wraps all our emotions into an art form.”

The meaning for the trip started bubbling to the surface for me on Monday night, when we gathered in the basement conference room of the W hotel. Amidst the chic black and white design that stuck elevator jazz in my head more than the gritty blues, organizers split us into songwriting groups to come up with lyrics. 10 unfamiliar high school students tasked with coming to a consensus on topics like love, loss, cheating, and government cheese (more on that later). Yet somehow things worked out. My group went first, and the kid with his school schedule written on his guitar added color to our cheesy lyrics about love’s pain. While they didn’t ink a record deal, the song got the whole room clapping and cheering together.

The same thing happened the next afternoon at the White House. We had no shortage of questions for the artists, and this energy carried over into their performances. Keb Mo shared “Government Cheese” with us, and then accompanied Shamekah Copeland after which all three came together for Trombone Shorties’ bluesy rendition of “The Saints Come Marching In.” Along to all three songs, we clapped and swayed to the rhythms shaking the White House walls.

The point of the trip really hit me then. The blues had done something few things can do: united and involved a group of teenagers. Like sharecroppers chanting a work song to keep moral high in the fields, the blues had been a driving force in everything we did in DC. The trip’s organizers had accomplished their goal: we normally distracted high school students had set down our cell phones and detached from our lives to feel the uniting power of the blues.