Sunday Vybe: House Music and Community in Newark

0:00A: Hey, listen, we got one more song in us. I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, because you could be any place else, but you chose to be where? Here! Y’all don’t even understand how much that makes my heart sing every time you do it on cue. Thank you. I want to thank you very much. Thank you, Team Mallory. Thank you, Herd Murray. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Edie. Thank you, Tam. I think she’s left, but thank you, Tony. Everybody that helped me make this happen. All right. I give you kudos because again, y’all don’t even have to be here, but y’all choose to be here with me.

0:00A: I don’t know when the next one’s gonna be. Don’t ask me. But just make sure that you look on my Facebook page, Instagram page. We will make sure that we have one relatively soon. And again, remember next summer, 2027, 3 times where? NJ Patch. We did a good thing. Take us home, Herb Martin. I need to say thank you to Rob Andrews. You know, the man behind the sound. And I really forgot to say thank you because he knows I’m very particular about my sound, and this man has been making sure that I’m firing. Word. So Rob, thank you so very much. Thank you, Herb.

0:00A: Thank you, T. Thank you, everybody that’s here. I love y’all. Please get home safely. I tell you I’m gonna text you when you get home. Give it nothing. Make sure y’all get home safe. Peace.

1:44B: So who do we got here? So this is my

1:46C: lovely -- listen, this is, this is Hart Martin. The name -- he is out of New York, out of the Bronx, as a matter of fact. Okay. Travels all over the place.

1:55B: I believe it. Excellent, excellent. Fantastic vibes.

1:58C: This is our homegrown T. Mallory.

2:00B: Okay, okay.

2:01C: Homegrown out of Brick City. How’s

2:03B: everything? Excellent, man.

2:05C: When I say I paired these 2 together, The purpose of pairing these two together was the synergy that they have, and they play really, really well off each other. Yeah, they don’t dance a lot, but they at least know what a dancer dancer wants.

2:18B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can tell.

2:20C: We had conversations about what I wanted to hear, how we should play it. And if you notice, the level of the sound is at a -- it’s not at a blaring level.

2:29B: Not at all.

2:29C: Because not everybody -- it doesn’t need to kill me.

2:32B: Of course not.

2:32C: We just want to dance.

2:33B: You want to feel it. You don’t want to -- you don’t want to --

2:35C: So Robin, he has done at least the last 6 parties that we’ve done. But he knows now, right? We don’t want it to be blaring, we want to have it nice. And because there’s people who live upstairs, so we want to make sure the people upstairs are okay. They can come downstairs if they want to. If not, I don’t want their -- you know, I don’t want things bumping.

2:54B: Of course, of course, you want to be respectful.

2:56C: Yeah, so this is

2:56B: good neighborly behavior. Okay, I see you.

2:59C: I think about everybody when I throw -- I curate a party. I think about the women because a lot of us are walking to the cars by ourselves. I think about parking, trying to make sure that everybody has a place to park and make sure it smells good. And I want everybody to just be able to have a good time today. That’s really, that’s really what it’s all about. As well as, this is the last thing, I curate a party for a party that I would go to because I don’t go a lot of places. And I make sure that this is someplace I would come here. This is the party that I would come to just because of those things. Y’all leaving? And I touch everybody, right? You the type of guy? I am. I touch everybody. I make sure everybody gets a little love. Thank you. Go far. And they, you know, they walk out. No one can say that they didn’t -- they didn’t get touched by me.

3:52B: I got some cake.

3:53C: And you had some cake?

3:54B: I had some cake.

3:55C: Text me when you get in. She really mean that for me? For you, I mean that. I didn’t know. There’s too many of them.

4:01B: I like that.

4:02C: I do. When I know that people are trying -- like, for yourself, I want you to text me when you get in the house.

4:08B: I’m probably not going to do it.

4:09C: See, at least you know. Knowing is half the battle. But I appreciate it. I do. And I think that --

4:18D: I got your information, brother.

4:20B: Awesome, man.

4:21C: Take care. I do like for them to text me to let me know that they made it home because you traveled here, right? You made the effort to come here. It’s for me to make the effort to make sure that you get home.

4:31B: Yeah, I get that. I get that. Full circle, right?

4:33C: Yeah, it’s a full circle. But I’m glad that you came.

4:36B: Yeah, me too. This was excellent. I never see people this much older than me back dancing in this space. Dancing, dancing nonstop. I like that. So what do you want to do? You know, you were like a main character today.

4:48D: It was like a cool night, right? It was. Yeah. Unexpected. This is what we do. This is Newark. Welcome to New Jersey. That’s right. People don’t sleep on us. We got a vibe over here. It’s serious. And there’s different levels to it.

5:00B: Definitely different levels.

5:02E: Different levels.

5:03B: Who are we here with? What’s your name?

5:04E: My name is Darmone. I’m originally from Brooklyn, but now I live in Newark. And I know a lot of these people. A lot of people from here. Been partying with Herb Martin since the ’80s.

5:14B: Oh yeah?

5:15E: Yeah.

5:15D: Spirits and -- Spirits and Spirits. What was the name of that party? Spirits and -- I can’t even remember. Spirits and Life?

5:21E: Spirits and Life? I can’t even remember all the names of the parties. I just remember the DJs.

5:25D: The one with Conrad and Terry, Spirits. It was the Spirits party.

5:29B: So this is really a scene that’s just like sustained through time, huh?

5:34E: Yeah.

5:34D: Right, but it’s moved around.

5:35E: Right, moved around, but same cast of characters.

5:38B: That’s pretty cool.

5:39E: Yeah, that we’ve been dancing 40, 50 years together. Mm-hmm.

5:43B: Well, I got like 30 minutes of it tonight. Yeah. It was very cool. We were dancing up a storm.

5:49E: There’s people here, 60 plus, you know, like me and everything. And we’ve been partying for over 40 years.

5:56B: Okay. I like that.

5:59E: Same people.

5:59B: I think that’s a beautiful thing.

6:00E: Yes. And so hopefully your generation will be able to keep that going. ’Cause it’s beautiful to be able to party with people for decades, the same people. You go through things together, you support each other, you dance through it all. It’s beautiful.

6:15B: Okay, I like that.

6:17E: I like

6:18B: that. Yeah, I, I like that.

6:19E: Because I have friends here. All of our mothers passed away. We came out and danced together to support each other, you know. Children graduating, children -- our children having children, us becoming grandparents, like all sorts of things. We stay connected through dance and through all the changes of life. Okay. I never

6:41D: thought -- for decades Since the ’80s. This is for, for some people since the ’70s in here. I started in the ’80s.

6:49E: Me too.

6:50D: Um, but yeah, and this is a good, a fun way of staying in shape.

6:54B: Oh, definitely.

6:54D: Get your heart rate going, you know, and, um, and connecting with -- there’s a community of people that just love music and we got love for each other, you know. Um, you know, it’s a way of getting away without having to take a flight.

7:06B: Yeah.

7:06D: You know, throughout the -- through the music. So that’s what we look forward to, but we just don’t have enough venues anymore. And dancing on cement is not -- it’s like, no, it’s not what we look forward to.

7:14E: Not when you’re 50 plus.

7:16B: Right.

7:16D: We look forward to dancing on a nice wooden floor with some give to it. Simple. You dance for hours. That’s where we all grew up on, was wood floors.

7:23B: And so you’re the future. You’re the future host. You’re the future venue of the scene, huh? You’re the destination.

7:29D: I am going to be the curator, the culture creator. I mean, I’ve done a lot over here already, but not in my own space.

7:34B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:34D: People come out this Saturday. they’ll be able to see what I’ve been doing. And, you know, 6 hours of me uninterrupted. So, um, that’s what makes it happen. The people come out and show support, and then we’ll have an inside venue. This place I’m playing at Saturday has a wood floor. It’s got a dope sound system. I don’t have to bring any speakers, which is what I usually do to most of my gigs. I create my gigs. Um, I rarely play where my sound is already there. Hmm. So this is gonna be special. It’s gonna be special. And it’s my first time working with this promoter. She heard me over the summer and was like, I need -- we’re going to work together. And it’s happening right now. So She heard me at Juneteenth. Juneteenth, I did 7 events in 6 days. I, um --

8:13B: Booked, booked and busy. That’s what they mean.

8:15D: And I played, I played Boys and Girls High School that Monday of Juneteenth, and it just kept going. I had Tuesday off, and then it kept going all the way through Sunday. From Monday -- no, Monday -- yeah, Monday to Sunday I had gigs all the way through. I started at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn playing for a graduation ceremony because it was Juneteenth, so it’s the end of the month. And then, um, Tuesday --

8:37B: Hey, Junior knows how to dance.

8:39D: Oh yeah, he caught some footage of me dancing for a little bit. Yeah, I used to teach 8 dance classes a week here in Newark.

8:45B: Yeah, I was saying that, that’s a lot of classes.

8:47D: Yeah, yeah, no, I was teaching hip-hop. I said it was 8 too. I said because I toured with Salt-N-Pepa and SWV, uh, all of the teachers wanted me to come and teach hip-hop, but I’m a house head. Like, I really want to teach a house dance class, so that’s part of me having my own space where I can do that. dust off my teacher shoes and get back out here. Fousey? Yes, Fousey.

9:09A: Damn, how you doing? We

9:13E: were just connected. Let’s get a picture.

9:16B: Oh well, you, you can do your thing. I’m just recording for the sake of recording. Of course.

9:21E: And then we want a picture all together.

9:23B: I like that. I’ll take the picture. Group photo! Group photo!

9:28A: Let’s go, everybody! Leave it, people!

9:33B: Look at that.

9:38D: 1, 2, 3.

9:41B: One more.

9:41D: 1, 2, 3. What are

9:44B: you guys doing?

9:46D: Group photos. I’m gonna do a big group.

9:50B: Oh yeah,

9:52D: this is the man. I love this guy. I’m so grateful for his contributions to nightlife and to what we’re able to do to this day. You know, him being part of the blueprint, pioneering it, you know, and passing the torch so we can keep it going, you know, keep the fire burning, fire burning into a huge, huge fire of love.

10:10B: So is this what it was like in the warehouse?

10:12D: A piece of it, a bit of it.

10:14F: A little, but more intense.

10:15D: Way more sound.

10:16F: More what? More sound, more intense.

10:19D: More space, more room. This club was huge. It was big. It was a big -- 6,000 square feet.

10:24B: Okay,

10:26F: so what are you finna do with this footage, man?

10:29B: I’ll put it on YouTube. Who brought a hard drive? Let’s get the photo. Don’t take that. Here, here, I can take the photo. No,

10:36A: no, Mr. Williams, get the photo. You

10:40B: sure I can’t take the -- I want to take the picture. I can’t take the --

10:49A: Terry! Terry! I see you, Terry!

10:51B: 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. Okay, and now it’s a video, so you can say whatever you want. Okay, I like that. Who spoke? This is your phone? My cell phone. Oh, I’m running away with it. What was your name?

11:23D: T. Mallory.

11:23B: What is it?

11:24D: T. Mallory.

11:25B: T. Mallory? Yes. Nice to meet you, man. Maceo. What’s your name again? Maceo.

11:30D: Maceo?

11:30B: Yeah, like Maceo Parker, but Maceo.

11:33D: Oh, Maceo.

11:33B: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

11:34D: Oh, okay.

11:35B: Yeah, I do like kind of vlogging content, but I do like a little journalism and And so I just came out today and I started recording. I said, you know, I don’t really see Black people dancing like this. So I was like, I need to get some of this on video. They gotta believe me. You never

11:48D: seen,

11:49B: uh, just fantastic music? I was trying to Shazam a song, I couldn’t find it. I said, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here right now.

11:55D: Oh, well, if you never saw this kind of get down, then, you know,

12:00B: it’s something beautiful. So talk to me about what this -- what’s going on back here, because I didn’t know what I was looking at at all. I just saw you going off. Mixer,

12:07F: effects box, plays. I keep it -- I keeps it simple, brother.

12:12B: I like that, I like that. And what’s your name?

12:14F: Herb. Herb Martin.

12:15B: Herb Martin. DJ Herb Martin. It’s very nice to meet you, sir.

12:18F: Nice to meet you. You spin? You play?

12:20B: No, no, no. Today’s the most -- today’s the most inspired I’ve been to though, I have to say.

12:24F: It’s addictive, let me warn you. I’ve been doing this since I’m 13.

12:27B: I believe you.

12:28F: I am 61.

12:30B: I wouldn’t believe it.

12:32F: What you playing?

12:35B: The music back here, right? Yeah, you don’t hear the music? It’s not the music.

12:38F: That’s the DJ hearing. I don’t hear shit.

12:41D: It’s in your pocket.

12:43B: It is in his pocket. That’s funny.

12:50F: Yeah, I can’t believe I didn’t hear it.

12:56D: Yeah, you was playing music since we was taking a picture.

13:00F: Wow.

13:02D: Since you finished, you, you probably was playing the whole time.

13:04B: Yeah, that’s even more crazy. The whole time he was playing tonight would be insane. How you doing?

13:14E: This was a -- I had a wonderful time.

13:16B: That’s excellent. Thank you. Oh yeah.

16:21A: The pressure of this weight of the world. You’re my ladder I’m to carry. I know with my yes today. He has that power. Give me strength and comfort. Anytime I weary from the pressure of the world, I’ve got peace.

36:23B: Okay, I like it. Good to see you today. This is actually dope. Oh, well, I’m Maceo. I’m Moni. Moni, it’s very nice to meet you. I got some, some beautiful footage of you dancing. You really? Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’m just here kind of documenting. I did some interviews walking around. Anything you want to say to the internet, to the people?