New Jersey sound
The New Jersey sound or Jersey sound is a genre of house music originating in Newark, New Jersey, during the early 1980s. It is a type of deep and garage house with an emphasis on soulful vocals influenced by Newark's gospel legacy.
History
The New Jersey sound originated in the 1980s. Places like Club Zanzibar in Newark, New Jersey, where DJ Tony Humphries began his residency in 1982, helped "spawn the sometimes raw but always soulful, gospel-infused subgenre" of deep house music known as the Jersey sound. Besides the term "New Jersey house", there are alternative names for the genre: "In the UK, for fairly unfathomable reasons, it became known as garage music, while in NJ itself they simply called it club and Taana Gardner.In 1992, Union County's Aly-Us released its deep-house hit "Follow Me."
Abigail Adams's house-music record label and store Movin’ Records in Newark's neighbor East Orange was another contributor to the Jersey Sound.
The Jersey club scene also gave rise to the ball culture scene in Newark hotels and nightclubs. "Queen of House" Crystal Waters and other house luminaries performed on the Newark scene. DJ Kerri Chandler, another Zanzibar DJ, was another pioneer of the "Jersey sound" variety of house music. Jersey artists like Jomanda, with the crossover hit "Got a Love for You," found success in the early 1990s house-music scene.
Some have said that "when New York went to hip hop , Jersey stayed with the club. Because of Zanzibar."