Jersey club: race, place and Black independent music-making in Newark, New Jersey
Creators: name: Henry, Jasmine A.
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2022

description: This dissertation combines oral history and ethnographic methods to critically examine the ongoing legacy of Black urban club music and party cultures through the independent music production, placemaking, and performance practices of contemporary Jersey Club music-makers in Newark, New Jersey. Pioneered by entrepreneurial Newark-natives in the early 2000s, the Jersey Club scene consists of a dynamic network of do-it-yourself DJs, dancers, promoters, and fans devoted to the production and circulation of Black club music and culture. With roots in several 1980s Black electronic dance music genres, Jersey Club music is a fusion of house and hip-hop stylistic elements distinguished by breakneck tempos, prominent low-end frequencies, and heavily chopped, manipulated, and layered vocal samples. Drawing from critical race, ethnomusicological, and performance studies theories, I argue that Jersey Club music-making functions as an integral aspect of contemporary Black social life through which urban youth engage in intersectional performances of Black self-making and placemaking. I show how these acts of everyday musical agency and geography, informed by the legacy of Black cultural nationalism and independence in Newark, enable Black independent music-makers to navigate the transhistorical cultural politics of contemporary Black club music production on a local, regional, and global level. Following an introductory chapter that lays out key research objectives and methods, Chapter Two identifies and analyzes the socio-sonic precursors and socioeconomic contexts of 1980s and 1990s Newark informing contemporary Jersey Club scene participants’ music production, placemaking, and performance practices. The chapter centers around a case study of the historic Newark dance venue, Club Zanzibar, the site of an underground drag ballroom scene where a distinct style of house music known as the “Jersey Sound” developed and evolved into Jersey Club music. Continuing the historical narrative started in Chapter Two, Chapter Three focuses on the development of the scene and evolution of the production, distribution, and consumption of the music since its inception at the turn of the century. To craft this part of the scene’s history, I examine the rise of the original DJ-producer collective, The Brick Bandits, who popularized Jersey Club in Newark as well as subsequent generations of scene participants. Building upon the historical narratives of the first two chapters, Chapter Four examines the transformation of everyday space into makeshift club places when Black urban youth occupy various geographic locations in Newark through Jersey Club dance battles and community block party events. Ultimately, the purpose of this chapter is to examine how Jersey Club music interacts in everyday public space and how everyday public spaces shape the production and performance experiences of scene participants. Finally, in Chapter Five, I tell the story of how Jersey Club music producer Cookiee Kawaii’s song “Vibe” went viral on social media and reveal the consequences of virality for Black independent music-makers. Through these chapters, I show that club music is, and has always been, an important site to explore transhistorical and transgeographical issues of Blackness.