Entry · catalog no. 1249
Jersey club
/ /ˈdʒɜːrzi klʌb/ /JUR-zee KLUB
noun · Newark, New Jersey · 2000s
✓ Verified
1.
A dance music style from Newark running roughly 130 to 140 beats per minute, marked by a triplet kick pattern, chopped vocal samples, and breakbeats inherited from Baltimore club.
“She flipped the whole record into Jersey club and it was in every gym in the county by Friday.”
2.
The scene and social world around that music — the parties, the DJ crews, the dances that travel with the tracks.
“He has been in Jersey club since he was in high school, before anybody outside the state was listening.”
Origin & Attribution
The music was made in Newark, whose nickname gives the sound its first name, Brick City club. DJ Tameil began carrying Baltimore club records up from Maryland in the late 1990s and playing them at Newark teen parties; he, DJ Tim Dolla, Mike V, and DJ Black Mic — the Brick Bandits — began producing their own, and Tameil dates the styles establishment to 1999 and 2000. It rests on Baltimore foundations, principally the two breakbeats Baltimore DJs had been building on since the late 1980s, Lyn Collinss Think (About It) and Gazs Sing Sing. The name changed to Jersey club as producers from outside Newark took it up. Coverage that treats it as a TikTok phenomenon of the 2020s skips twenty years of work by Newark DJs who were selling burned CDs on Broad Street.
1999
DJ Tameil dates the establishment of Brick City club in Newark, built from Baltimore club records
2014
The FADER publishes an oral history and DJ Sliinks Trey Songz Na Na remix lands on Atlantic Records
2022
Lil Uzi Verts Just Wanna Rock, produced by Newarks MCVertt, reaches number ten on the Billboard Hot 100
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Newark, New Jersey · 2000s
Spoken by
Newark and North Jersey DJs, producers, and dancers; now global online
$JERSEYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising27 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
86/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1999
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Ruth Saxelby, The Skys The Limit: An Oral History of Jersey Club, The FADER, 12 June 2014, photographs by Raeann Walters, with DJ Tameil, Tim Dolla, DJ Sliink, UNiiQU3, Nadus and DJ Guy
oral history
■
+ Cite a sourceLil Uzi Vert, Just Wanna Rock, produced by MCVertt and Synthetic, released 17 October 2022
single
See also