Baltimore / Jersey Club

early 1990s (Baltimore), 1999 to 2001 (Jersey) · Baltimore, Maryland and Newark, New Jersey, United States

Baltimore club fused Chicago house with hip hop breaks in the early 1990s, then Newark DJs sped it up into Jersey club, a triplet-kick mutation that now powers global pop hits (Resident Advisor, The FADER).

The sound

Chicago house and ghetto house sped up and roughened with hip hop breaks, chopped call-and-response vocals, and a rave edge, then re-cut in Newark into a faster, stuttering triplet-kick bounce built for viral dance clips.

Listen for: The 'Think' and 'Sing Sing' breaks looping under chanted vocal chops in Baltimore, then how Jersey club swaps that steady breakbeat for a stuttering triplet kick and a squeaky bed sample.

Things to know

  1. Baltimore club was created in the early 1990s by a cluster of DJs and producers including Frank Ski, Scottie B, Shawn Caesar, DJ Technics, and DJ Class, working out of Baltimore's Black and LGBTQ nightlife scene.

  2. Producers like KW Griff and DJ Booman built Baltimore club's basement-studio sound on the Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler, looping breakbeats directly instead of cutting between two turntables live. Rod Lee later got his own ASR-10 and became one of the genre's most prolific producers.

  3. Jersey club began as 'Brick City Club Music' in Newark around 1999 to 2000, when DJ Tameil started bringing Baltimore club records north for teen parties. The genre was renamed Jersey club around 2005 as it spread via college campuses and Myspace.

  4. The 'bed squeak' heard across countless Jersey club tracks did not start as a mattress. Lil Jon says it came from a squeaking studio chair he was rocking in while making Trillville's 2004 single 'Some Cut', squeaking right on the beat.

Key tracks

Family tree

  • House: Baltimore club was built on top of Chicago house records before the city made its own. Scottie B and Shawn Caesar were well-known Baltimore house DJs before founding Unruly Records, and Chicago tracks like Cajmere's "Percolator" stayed in local sets so long they became honorary canon. Producers kept house's insistent drive, then roughened it with hip hop breaks and chanted vocal chops, close cousin to Chicago's own ghetto house offshoot.
  • Techno: The Baltimore Sun's history of Unruly Records says British and German breakbeat techno records inspired the Baltimore sound as much as hip hop did, if not more, alongside borrowings from Detroit techno and Miami bass. Techno was physically in the city too: Baltimore's Fever rave parties booked Frankie Bones, Josh Wink, and Richie Hawtin through the 1990s, right as club music was forming.

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