There’s something going down in Newark, New Jersey. Almost 15 years after it emerged to usurp house music as the heartbeat of the town nicknamed Brick City, Jersey Club—the fast and aggressive dance music that has its roots in Baltimore Club’s house and hip-hop fusion—is finally making it big outside state lines. The waves of recognition that producers like DJ Sliink have spurred over the last few years have swelled into something approaching a movement. At the heart of the scene is THREAD, a regular party founded by a younger generation of the city’s Brick Bandits crew and held at The Life Lab, a studio space opposite a train track in a particularly industrial patch of Newark. It’s here that the scene’s producers gather, sometimes to spin but mostly to reconnect with their peers after being out on tour. Here seven players in the Jersey Club scene—the genre’s founders DJ Tameil and Tim Dolla, crossover producer DJ Sliink, rising stars UNiiQU3, Nadus and DJ Guy, and Jersey Club promoter Ngu Asongwed—weigh in on the evolution of Jersey Club, how it’s become such an crucial part of Newark identity, and why the rest of the world is finally catching on.
UNIIQU3 Jersey Club is your morning coffee and your midnight Red Bull. It’s the best genre, ranging from 130 to 140BPM with hard kicks and catchy vocals.
DJ Guy The heart of the Jersey Club scene is localized in Downtown Newark. It started when DJ Tameil started bringing Baltimore Club records up to NJ and playing them out at teen parties and other club nights in Newark and the surrounding suburbs.
DJ Tameil Jersey Club was originally named Brick City Club Music. It branched from Baltimore Club music and was created and established in 1999-2000. The name changed to Jersey Club because when newer producers started to produce these tracks they weren’t all from Newark.
DJ Sliink The foundation of Jersey Club was DJ Tameil, DJ Tim Dolla, Mike V, DJ Black Mic and more. Those are the OGs of Jersey and the people that put Jersey Club on the map by making prominent music. Those guys were just doing what they loved but at the same time they inspired a whole generation under them. All of the young kids looked up to them and the Brick Bandits imprint. The Brick Bandits crew furnished the best Jersey Club music coming out in the early days.
DJ Guy DJ Tameil briefly beefed with and subsequently joined together with Tim Dolla and the Brick Bandits crew. By the time I was picking up mixtape CDRs and party fliers off the floor of my high school cafeteria in 2003, Brick Bandits was well established and running the city.
Nadus The club scene before Jersey Club was full of house music: Romanthony, Kerri Chandler, Tony Humphries, the list goes on. Growing up, we also had a lot of juke and ghetto house floating around skating rinks and clubs.
DJ Tameil Before Brick City/Jersey Club, the scene was pretty much already there through the house music roots. We had plenty of house music artists from here such as Aly-Us, who were the creators of the classic “Follow Me,” CeCe Rogers, who made the Jersey classic “Someday,” and many others. Jersey is also home of the legendary club Zanzibar, which is always raised in conversations about house and club music in Jersey, so it’s two styles that will always be part of Jersey.
DJ Sliink Jersey Club is like a religion to people that actually grew up on it and followed it from the Baltimore days. People were already familiar with the sound and beat structure because we always played B-More Club in Jersey. It wasn’t far fetched and it was easy and exciting to dance to. Young and grown people get down to Jersey Club; it’s a very friendly genre.
