James Marlow
marlowja@grinnell.edu
Kicking off the semester with a high energy, high intesity concert, Jersey Club artist UNiiQU3 and False Witness will perform in Gardner Lounge on Friday, Sept. 4, at 9 p.m. In addition, student DJs Enmusique (Simonne Carlton ’18) and Roy Utah (Hameed Weaver ’17) will kick off the night with a back-to-back DJ set. Students should expect one of the most high energy nights of the semester, with the fast-paced sounds of East Coast club music coming to the prairie in all their cardio-driven glory.
Often referred to as the “Queen of Jersey,” UNiiQU3 (Cherise Gary) hails from just outside of Newark, NJ, home to the lively genre of dance music known as “Jersey Club.” Characterized by its inventive use of clipped vocal samples, infectious triplet drum patterns and a bouncy 140 BPM pace, Jersey Club has recently gained traction both online and in the club, with BBC Radio 1 and Diplo taking interest in the sound. Jersey Club tracks draw from an astonishingly large field of experimental source material, not only taking samples from classic and contemporary R&B hits, but from sources ranging all the way from Vine memes to the Caillou theme song.
Not content to be limited to the role of a DJ, UNiiQU3 offers her own take on the Jersey sound, producing original tracks that often utilize her own call-and-response vocals, a technique that will be sure to get the crowd going. Ranging from the raunchy (“Booty so fresh they call me tic tac”) to the empowering (“I’m that little chick from Jersey that straight gets shit shakin’/And I can see from my peripheral, ya bitches be hatin”), UNiiQU3’s lyrics are all about turning up and thriving in the club on your own terms. With her deft beats and playful emceeing, there is little doubt that UNiiQU3’s set will be one of the most memorable of the semester.
False Witness (Marco Gomez) forges a unique blend of reggaeton, ballroom and industrial beats, with the ultimate aim of highlighting how club cultures stand as spaces of political confrontation. Currently based in New York City, Gomez is a founding member of the #KUNQ movement, a self-described queer artist collective that includes previous Gardner performers Kilbourne and Rizzla.
Decrying the apolitical nature of gentrified electronic music scenes, False Witness’s dark minimalism seeks to reclaim the club as a space that has been developed by the innovations of queer and minority communities. Through his synthesis of reggaeton rhythms juxtaposed with the empowering dialectic of queer ballroom culture, False Witness will be sure to bring an intense set (and dialogue) to Gardner Lounge.
