What is Jersey Club music? Good question. Jersey Club music originated in and around Newark, New Jersey during the 90s. The sound was greatly influenced by the Baltimore house scene in the 80 but was pioneered with a Jersey sound by DJ Tameil, DJ Tim Dolla and DJ Black Mic of the “Brick Bandits Crew.”
The music blog Run The Trap posted a wicked article on Jersey Club Music simply titled What is Jersey Club Music? In the article they describe the sound in the following way:
Jersey club and Bmore club/house are very similar; both are based on a 4/4 time signature* and tend to fall in the 130-140 BPM range making gratuitous use of short sample loops and shuffled triplet kick patterns to create a “bouncy” groove. DJ Tameil broke it down during an interview in 2006:
Our styles are real similar, but the difference with the Baltimore club is they like a lot of horns, while we use harder kicks and chop the samples up a lot more.
Simple as that? Almost. Since 2006, the scene has changed (read: gotten much younger) and according to DJ Sliink (a 22 year old himself) in an interview he did with Dubspot,
“They’ve got a bunch of popular dance groups out in Jersey, so they’ll come and make a dance at a small party when a DJ plays a song and maybe runs it back a few times… Then you go to the next party, and everybody’s doing that dance. At the next party it’s even bigger. Then, they’ll make a video and that’s how the kids learn it.”
For more information on the history of the genre stay tuned to Thump’s seriesed documentary that will address the history of the genre and navigate the currenty Jersey Club scenee. Check out Part One below.
