A Legacy Recognized
The Jersey Club Music Historical Marker:
Preserving Newark’s Rhythm of Innovation
In 2025, the State of New Jersey approved a historical marker at Branch Brook Park Roller Skating Rink in Newark — officially recognizing the rink as the creative birthplace and cultural nucleus of Jersey Club Music. This recognition, led by the community-based organizations Urban Seeds Grow, Illtown Philanthropists, and The Brickerati Group, represents a milestone in cultural preservation for Newark and the global dance-music community.
The approval of the Jersey Club Music Historical Marker signals a turning point in how the world views New Jersey’s cultural contributions. It confirms that the beats created in Newark’s skating rinks and basements are not just local anthems — they are artifacts of cultural history worthy of preservation, study, and celebration. For the first time, the State of New Jersey and the Black Heritage Trail recognize Jersey Club as a legitimate cultural heritage — one born from the creative resilience of Newark’s community. This marker stands as both a tribute and a promise: that the rhythm born in Brick City will continue to inspire, educate, and move people around the world for generations to come.
How the Marker Came to Be
The effort to secure this designation began as a collaborative research and documentation project between Urban Seeds Grow — a Newark-based cultural development and land-justice organization — and The Brickerati Group, a creative strategy firm that focuses on Black cultural preservation.
Together, the two organizations conducted oral-history interviews and primary-source documentation to establish the deep historical roots of Jersey Club Music within Newark’s public spaces. Among those interviewed were two of the most influential voices in the genre’s history:
Tameil Payne (DJ Tameil), one of the original architects of the sound, and
Ira Kherki Kaifa (Unicorn151), one of the city’s most prominent cultural leaders and international Jersey Club ambassadors.
Through these direct conversations, Urban Seeds Grow and The Brickerati Group were able to compile first-hand accounts of how the rink became the creative ground zero for an entire cultural movement — a place where youth, rhythm, and innovation merged to form a new expression of Newark identity.
Their research was reinforced by extensive secondary sources, including national media coverage and documentary films that have traced the evolution of Jersey Club from its local roots to its global influence.
Documented Cultural Legacy
Over the past decade, Jersey Club’s story has increasingly been told by respected media and documentary outlets:
• PBS profiled Newark’s scene in a televised documentary exploring the social impact of Jersey Club culture and the artists who carried it into the digital age.
• The Jersey Sound, a feature film, chronicled the evolution of Newark’s unique sound — from the early “Brick City Club” era to the global stages of today.
• Spin Magazine and Vibe Magazine published major features tracing the genre’s trajectory and its connection to the city’s house-music lineage, emphasizing the contributions of DJs like Tameil and producers like Unicorn151 who kept the sound authentic while helping it grow.
• The New York Times highlighted Branch Brook Park Skating Rink as one of Newark’s cultural landmarks — not only as a recreational space, but as a living studio where the beat of a generation was born.
Together, these articles, interviews, and films form an essential archive that validates what Newarkers have long known: Jersey Club Music is not a passing trend — it’s a cultural institution that has shaped dance, fashion, and creative identity for more than thirty years.
From Brick City Club to Jersey Club
Before it was known worldwide as “Jersey Club,” the movement was called Brick City Club — a name reflecting its birthplace in Brick City, Newark’s enduring nickname.
In the early 1990s and 2000s, young producers and dancers in Newark fused Baltimore Club rhythms with local house, hip-hop, and R&B influences. They remixed popular songs with breakneck percussion, chopped vocals, and infectious call-and-response energy that quickly spread through the city’s roller rinks, basements, and block parties.
Branch Brook Park Skating Rink became the scene’s heartbeat — a space where community and creativity collided. DJs like Tameil, Nadus, and later Unicorn151 and others created an environment that united Newark’s youth across neighborhoods and backgrounds through sound, movement, and pride.
The term “Jersey Club” emerged as the music began to travel beyond city limits — to college campuses, nightclubs, and social-media dance challenges across the world. What began as Brick City Club had become New Jersey’s cultural export.
A Global Sound
Three Decades in
the Making
Though Jersey Club Music has existed and been celebrated in dance circles for more than three decades, it is only in recent years that the genre has been officially acknowledged as part of America’s musical canon.
Artists from Beyoncé to Drake and UNIIQU3 have incorporated its patterns into mainstream hits, while producers and dancers from Europe, Africa, and South America cite Newark’s sound as inspiration.
Yet for all its worldwide reach, the story of Jersey Club remains deeply tied to Newark, to Essex County, and to the Black youth who created joy out of rhythm.
The historical marker at Branch Brook Park Skating Rink ensures that the next generation — from local students to visiting tourists — will know that this global music phenomenon was born in a public space built for community connection.
Why the Marker Matters
This marker is more than a plaque — it’s a restoration of cultural memory.
By acknowledging Jersey Club Music’s origins as Brick City Club, the State of New Jersey affirms that Newark’s Black creative energy has always been central to the state’s identity.
It also establishes a precedent for recognizing living culture — histories that are still evolving through the work of artists, educators, and community builders.
For pioneers like DJ Tameil, who introduced the world to the sound, and for Unicorn151, who continues to teach, perform, and represent Jersey Club on international stages, this recognition closes a historical loop — linking Newark’s past to its global present.
Their names on the historical marker ensure that the people who built the sound are preserved alongside it.