The endless evolution of Jersey club

A bedroom producer in the most glorious sense, when TAH talks about their ideal studio, they build a picture of slippers at the entrance, water fountains and “a bigger-budget version” of their current set-up, full of Moog synths and soft things. “When I’m home, it’s for sleep or making things. It makes producing more sacred to me — rest is sacred,” they say.

Something of an enigma but very prolific, TAH has a plethora of unreleased tracks just for playing out. Sometimes they’ll take notes on how to improve a track while it’s playing on the dancefloor — “on those $2m soundsystems in New York”. It is this perfectionism that allows for such a nuanced, intuitive sound. On TAH’s single ‘Clean House feat. History’, off their forthcoming ‘THICC’ album, you can hear an amalgamation of techniques from TAH’s time working in audio-visual post-production, spot sounds like gunshots rippling against drums beefed up with the Oversampled Pancz plugin.

“‘THICC’ is going to be a lot of rhythmic sound design. It’s important to combine all the weird audio shit you’ve learned throughout the years and try and make something of it; they’re your tools to build a house with,” explains TAH. As well as Jersey club, ‘THICC’ is informed by ambient, ghetto house by the likes of Chicago’s Wax Master, booty house, shake dat ass music, and jungle and breaks culture. They’ve always slid between genres, like with their UK grime-pocked track ‘696’ featuring ’89 The Brainchild, who flows between guttural inflections and talon-sharp delivery, with ad-libs from Kohai, The Wonderguy.

Elsewhere, their ambient track ‘At The Heart Of Every Poem, There’s A Woman’ is a prime example of the meditative quality notable in all of TAH’s music. “I make music in a meditative way; it’s like, ‘This is how I’m feeling right now, I just got off work and I want to be creative’. Creating is for me first, and for listening second. The track itself is a danceable meditation.”

During TAH’s shifts as a CBD delivery driver, they listen to jazz on WBGO 88.3 FM. “I get samples and ideas. Jersey is an aggressive driving state, the jazz gets your head right.”

Listening to TAH’s music is like stumbling across a journal in a video game, a ship’s log of someone exploring themselves, their artistry and where Jersey club can go. “It’s become something bigger than just music for dancing,” they say. “We’re in our Roaring ’20s — making music that’s freeform and more experimental, diving into different sounds.”

Photo credit: Guarionex Rodriguez Jr

South Jersey’s Hyped-Up Reese has been producing since 2014. “Willingboro is a hodge-podge of subcultures,” she says. “Club culture is transplanted from different places here — my family is from North Jersey, but I wasn’t completely submerged in North Jersey club culture; I had freedom to experiment but no mentors.”

As a kid she always wanted to form a band, and on a quest for beats that matched her lyric writing, started producing her own. She’s self-taught and skilling up through beat battles on platforms run by the likes of R3LL and A-Trak (like the latter’s Goldie Awards). A SoundCloud head (one of her first mixes hit 80,000 plays on there), her goal is to find new remixes nobody has ever heard. This feeds into her production too, like on ‘Colorado Driftt’ from her ‘Don’t Sleep On Yourself’ Jersey club mixtape, which is threaded through with tricks, slows and reverbs, samples taken from a baile funk rabbit hole she went down.

“I heard them, sized them to my song and used it to get the feel of being in the Colorado mountains, elevated.” Hyped-Up Reese understands the importance of following your dreams. Wearing a T-shirt sporting the slogan ‘You Are Enough!’, she opens up. “I’ve been homeless. I’ve seen the depression  you can have as a creative entrepreneur. I associated following my dreams with being broke.” She created her brand, The Hype Haus, to be everybody’s cheerleader and “cultivate an environment where creatives feel safe and supported through a sense of belonging”.

“I see myself in the doubt that makes other people hesitant,” she continues. “We’re in this together, we’re not alone.” One of her biggest breaks was hosting a PBNJ (short for Philly, Baltimore and New Jersey) event produced by UNIIQU3 and run with Baltimore’s Bmore Than Dance collective. “I was very intentional about following artists I could see myself in: queer BPOC artists,” says Reese, who first met UNIIQU3 at a women empowerment event she put on.

Here, she also met artists like Cookie Kawaii. “Cookie’s energy was so great that I ended up coming out to North Jersey to show her love with my cousins when she released her project ‘Club Soda: Vol.1’.”

Hyped-Up Reese’s latest project is a collaborative mixtape with local artists Grizz, Keyz and Shyvybez. “It’s fuelled off love and passion for the music. I’m here, making it happen with what I have.”

Producer LilC4 — born in Elizabeth and raised in Newark — took an interest in music as early as 12 years old, when he downloaded music-making software onto his mum’s computer. A couple of years later, in ninth grade, he moved to Woodbridge. “It was a bunch of white kids,” he recalls. He felt singled out, but tried to turn this into a positive for his music. “When you on your own, you stand out. I could have stood out in Newark too, but maybe I had a greater chance [when] separated.”

By age 17, he was hosting his own parties around the East Coast. LilC4 is highly online. His dance videos to tracks like his own ‘STB Anthem’ and ‘30 BLK Cypher’ are an essential part of Jersey club history — “I was a dancer, it’s in my blood; the music I make is from how I dance and the people dancing around me” — and at 25 years old he regularly goes viral on TikTok. He says the best way to ensure music translates to a wider audience is to feel the melody on the song before the beat, and advises producers to “protect your stamp”.

LilC4 is also known for his dynamic BPM choices. “In the beginning, it was a key tempo of 134,” he says. “I dance fast, so I started making my music on 150. It was something new, and the OGs who created the club culture, they wasn’t really feeling it. It took time for that to rub off. Now club can be any tempo you want it to be.”

This intuition about what will work on the dancefloor is one of the reasons LilC4 is a leading figure in Jersey club. Lately, his sound has softened in a way, as on his tracks ‘R&B Club 80s Vibe’ and ‘Bandman Freestyle’ featuring rapper Bandmanrill, where an extra-terrestrial melodic line glides around the vocals. “I’ve been sharpening up my mixing skills and thinking mainstream with certain songs, it’s a certain sound people are trying to hit. I used to just throw stuff on a grid, now I’m aiming for it to be more seamless.”

In 2008, a 12-year-old in skinny jeans and an I Love New York T-shirt went to the school dance at Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts. At some point in the evening, DJ 40 Cal cued in ‘Dump It’, and Kia BHN did the Running Man. Though they’d been into Jersey club since 2005, dancing with the Laguna Beach Girls team, this was the moment when she started getting noticed by DJs — “40 Cal would tell people I was his little cousin.” She’s been Reverse Milly Rocking her way to fame ever since.

Today, Kia teaches Jersey club at Beyond The Boogie in Montclair, NJ to those aged 10 and up, with some students coming all the way from Philadelphia. She also runs RepTheCulture, an initiative that helps promote Jersey club music through dance (battles, open mics and more). She’s a veteran in the scene who’s passing on knowledge and opening up space to emerging artists.

“Whatever that is gonna happen, give the floor,” she says. “I tell them to trust the mess ups — a mess up can still be a move. “The sound is now in a place of history,” continues Kia, leaning into the intergenerational aspect of the sound. “The family-oriented feel within the music is never gonna die; child-friendly events make sure the music is not misunderstood or forgotten.”

As a DJ, Kia has a playful approach to blending. Her now viral Jersey club mix, ‘Jersey Anniversary’ is a perfect example, flitting between energies — fresh yet nostalgic at the same time. “My mentor always told me to have fun. Allow your body to apply itself. The music is there for you. Create those images, those sounds. Let out the colours that you see when you interact with music.”

JIDDY played drums in church. He danced and wanted to make the music that got people dancing. His godbrother introduced him to producing and he’s now been at it for over 11 years. There’s something about the aquatic nature of JIDDY’s productions that causes goosebumps. His tracks are smooth, moving with the rhythm of a waterbed, like with his edit of SZA’s ‘Good Days’. “I like you to be in your feelings and move at the same time,” he says.

He cites cookout music — a local name for New Jersey sound house music — played at community gatherings as an early inspiration. His own tracks are high-energy, with heavy drums that hold their own, such as on his track with TAH, ‘She Chose’. His tag — “Jay-Eye-Double-Dee-Why” — has become iconic, a warm presence shining in countless sets. When complimented on this, he shyly admits, “In this culture, if your music is getting played constantly at parties, then you somebody.”

His legendary remix of Pink Sweat$’s ‘Honesty’ is an example of his characteristically Jersey club cheekiness, his songs spliced with unexpected ad-libs like “Take the condom off! 

JIDDY is also affectionately known as Fast Jiddy, as he started making music at 142bpm before experimenting with other approaches.
“How I make my music now is not how I used to. I was chopping more back then. I feel like I’ve matured it — the sound design. I’ve got the same style, but I’ve brought something different to it,” he says, praising LilC4 for setting off the higher-tempo wave in a big way and taking risks. There’s a subtle and soulful quality to JIDDY’s sound that he puts down to making music aimed at women. “Women are the key with music,” he says, along with the melodies he chooses. “I make an eight-second loop, and if I can dance to it then I know it’s a good song, that’s my routine for everything."

KAYY DRiZZ is a DJ, producer and artist from Jersey, who prides themselves on creating iMAX-worthy experiences that “transform the dancefloor into a safe space for people from all walks of life”. They’ve been listening to Jersey club since 2002 and making music since 2007, coming up with Brick Bandits into a predominantly male scene at the time.

KAYY DRiZZ makes music that activates you, from booty bouncer original ‘Dimples In Ha Back’ with its Timbaland-style scale play,
quirky edits of tracks like ‘Papaya Lipgloss’ by Night Slugs’ Bok Bok and Sweyn Jupiter, to their muscular ‘Dirty Diana’ collab remix with Bmore club’s Yetti Da Kid and new club wave producer CalvoMusic.

KAYY DRiZZ’s 2011 ‘Haters Anthem’ with Mike Gip is a certified bop, voices blending as the pair coax you in, breaks that sound like soft spills preluding the classic hard kicks. After featuring KAYY DRiZZ in his food series, In The Mix With Matt FX, DJ, producer, chef and music supervisor Matt FX placed KAYY’s track ‘Clear Monday’ — produced by Too Late Productions — in the Departures short Strictly Ballroom and Comedy Central’s Broad City. For their upcoming releases, KAYYDRiZZ has been working with Baltimore producers to incorporate Bmore sounds into their Jersey club tracks.

Photo credit: Mans Plans Media

Dancer and choreographer Zaneyah Fryer, aka Neyy Boogs, is co-CEO of The Lab Sisterz (alongside BigSexy), an all- women dance team who champion Jersey club and pride themselves on creating a safe space for women to dance. A big part of their practice is in preaching determination and demanding respect.

“Men have a stronger hit in the community, to see the guys dance is an automatic ‘wow’ — girls have to come with a certain type of confidence,” says Fryer. “Respect goes a long way; people see how determined you are, they see you putting in work. When I battle men, it doesn’t scare me — I have a job to do. I am a woman that’s going to show that you can have people in your corner if you’re just as confident.” Neyy Boogs is a technical dancer: she studied ballet, jazz and African dance alongside a lived study of Jersey club dance.

She brings all this into dance battles — one of the key elements of Jersey club culture — proving herself at notable events like Baltimore’s quickfire knockout tournament The Gauntlet and ‘Shake Dat Shit’ VS ‘Rock Yo Hips’ in Jersey (a battle that arose out of intercity controversy over two similar dance moves). Despite the latter, Fryer says she’d like to see “more unity across states, as a community”, instead of a divisive “state-versus-state mentality”.

The Lab Sisterz have a Grade A music team of mixers and producers: RetroJ, Da.waune, Nai The Mixer and LetsgoYanii. “Each one brings their own sound, from music that makes you dance quick to the stuff that hits on TikTok.” For Fryer and her peers, Jersey club is a way of life, whether they’re at events, dance studios or friends’ houses — “Whenever we can, we dance.”