The Jerk Manifesto
A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Jerk Music.
I know that is a little tongue in cheek, but we can definitely view the new rise in Jerk music as something similar in the growth in generation changing ideologies of the past. Jerk music has been inescapable in the past few years, especially in the "TikTok Sound" market. That catchy snare bounce is hypnotic, but it has just been applied like an overused math formula like how the beginnings of New York and the UK's drill bounces were applied to endless remixes before its blossoming. That is just the mainstream facet of the Jerk sound though, as it's behind the scenes growth is truly fascinating. Personally, I have seen many subgenres of hip hop come and go into obscurity since the blog era, but nothing has been more mysterious and as inspiring as Jerk music has been in recent times. Those same subgenres that have been left to obscurity were also devoured by the old Capitalist music economy, leaving them a shell of what once was. "The Underground" as everyone dubs it, reminds me of the term "Alternative" music, as it is the umbrella term to classify sounds/scenes within hip hop that does not adhere to any mainstream standards. Artists within the Underground might not work within one sound or scene, and instead work within the many subgenres that create the "Underground" as a whole. The same artist could fluidly move between Jerk, Plugg, Rage, Digicore, "drumless" contemporary jazz, the list goes on. I have closely studied the Underground since the beginnings of Soundcloud itself and the blog era, Jerk (and sometimes Plugg/Pluggnb) has continuously been the only genre I have found that refuses to be devoured by a major system and promotes a community driven, DIY focused, international culture including genre that promotes the individual's subjective experiences and cultures. I believe musically, Jerk is the culmination of the increasing need and yearn for a decentralized, artist focused, DIY approach that communicates even through countless different geopolitical and economic landscapes. Drill music was the last we seen of this, as every country had their own version of the drill sound that contributed to a greater worldwide conversation. Sadly, like most genres that are rarely able to reach this feat, were devoured up by labels and became a vehicle for bourgeois ideals. Jerk music as I will explain, will be the sound that liberates listeners worldwide, encourages you to express yourself based on your subjective experience, and promotes the inclusion and incorporation of your own respective heritage, cultures, and rhythms.
First, like all great movements, we must see where Jerk music stems from. A great article I would like to link to this topic is "Jerkin, and the Imperiled State of Positive Rap" by chibu ichiban. Jerk music, as the name implies, stems from the dance movement called "Jerkin". On a larger scale though, Jerk music really comes from the club and dance scenes of the mid to late 2000s and early 2010s. California and its many scenes added much to Jerk through the "Hyphy" movement, as did its dance-rap music in the same decade. Like ichiban speaks of in their article, Jerkin from its inception was synonymous with being "lame". Its ethos went against most preconditioned notions of hip hop entirely, especially what was selling before. I am a white man from the south, so I'm not going to speak about gang culture and it's effects on society, how it can use music as a vehicle for harm and for good through expression, and how it is incentivized in several industries in our system. I will say, dance culture and hip hop have been anti-establishment and anti-colonial since it's roots, and combining the two worlds on a larger platform (which were already linked) planted the seeds for the generation growing up at that time. The "lameness" I speak of is how in these same cultures, especially hip hop and potentially even society at large during that time, it was not widely accepted to be weird, a nerd, a skateboarder, a virgin, a gamer, you get it. The same feelings you were used to the kids in 2000s movies that was listening to My Chemical Romance saying "no one gets me", are the same feelings that geared those that felt outcasted to make the dance culture that spawned Audio Push, The Pack (my favorite), Cali Swag District, etc. On the other end of the country, was Atlanta. Atlanta has a well documented dance scene online just like California had. What led after these new budding dance-rap scenes that were geared towards clubs were internet culture, and the developing of that "lame" generation from before. To better understand Jerk's mindset towards creation, I think we need to look more into these internet cultures, their byproducts and their influences.
While there is no sure concrete evidence that I can readily search up and give one link to, the communities that we call "weird kids", "outcasts", or even just youth that grow up with the internet entirely, have been inherently intertwined with internet cultures entirely. These internet cultures have now grown to have their own "aesthetics", and we have lived long enough to where these cultures not only are not just random groups online, but have their own histories and complex web of influences. I'm sure memes take up most of the world's populations' phones, and the original raw file of Pepe will one day be looked at as almost a modern Mona Lisa of sorts. We are especially seeing these once obscure online circles now become engrained within overall pop culture. Another way these have sank into modern mainstream culture is since online cultures rely on DIY methods (such as videos/media off of a phone), those methods are now looked at as their own aesthetics and cultures within themselves. For example, a teenager today might order an iPhone 4 just to have that iOS and camera, just to post like how someone enjoying that culture would've in 2008. Another recent, more evil, example is the rise of looksmaxxing culture, which stems from early 4chan and incel forums. Which this brings me back to Jerk, which also borrows from these early online cultures and usually were inhabited by those "outcasts" as before. A Jerk artist might very well just be a critically online teenager, who uses a sample of a commercial they heard as a kid, uses a meme as the single cover, and speak about why their manager is the opp for not letting them take an extra 15 min break that week. Some Jerk artists are essentially the musical version of shitposters, and each song is a post equivalent to how a meme account would post. This is slightly a farce though, because through all these cultures and shitposts, are real connections.
Today the way we connect with each other, express ourselves, and interact online is a Metamodern ideal. We will own a meme account rooted in posts about CIA operations for example, but behind all the laughs and posts it is essentially real activism and work done by the public for a greater cause. People today hold contradictions and embrace them, it's not uncommon for a Jerk artist to speak about "normal" hip hop and capitalist ideals, but with a ting of melancholy for their peers and today's world that are a product of the same ideals. The constant oscillation between earnest sincerity and cynicism is a true trademark of internet culture and its infinite creations. A Discord server with random people across nations gather potentially to just play Rocket League together, but over the course of years constantly interacting with each other, be the only people who truly understand each other in this world. These back alleys of society and the internet, a digital version of the surreal cracks of small town suburbia worldwide, are the backbone of the musical "society" (and our greater societal landscape to an extent) in which is being created today. Jerk music follows this same outlook, as an artist within the genre's audience could very have met via an Instagram comment section and are meeting for the first time at their concert. This isn't a new idea, many internet spawned genres have created similar situations, but the true difference is Jerk stays in that community driven space, and supports the individual and their respective cultures.
These cultures I spoke of before might've have been inspired by online spaces, but Jerk is very well influenced by region as well, just like its foundations. The UK Underground in recent years has embraced their individual cultures and created new advancements within Jerk's sound. We all know of Esdeekid, fakemink, and YT (to name a few) as the staple UK jerk sound, but we have artists like Fimiguerrero embracing Nigerian influences, Len embracing Jamaican influences, N4T embracing Ghanan influences, Ciel with dancehall, the list goes on. The most beautiful thing of it all is this does not take away from the original sound of Jerk, but adds to it. It is almost something unprecedented to have a genre where if you push the boundaries by adding a separate bounce from a culture that is different than the source rhythm, you add to the overall genre. Jerk also draws inspiration from cloud rap, which has its own international imprints from Sweden, Finland, and the US. The sources in which Jerk draws its inspirations from does not stop there, since sounds associated the aforementioned online scenes associated with Jerk and the Underground as a whole are present. Ledbyher is a great example of this, her vocal melodies resembling indie/bedroom pop just as much as hip hop. While Jerk is undeniably rooted in hip hop and dance music and their respective cultures, it almost makes you wonder if this is a new genre all together, or not even a genre at all but just a natural international extension of all genres and their influences. As I'm sure if a hardcore guitarist sang and wrote over a jerk drum bounce, and a Corridos artist put jerk drums under their song it magically transforms them to Jerk tracks, or does it? It forces us to question and uproot a lot of the previous notions of musical institutions of the past that have been products of classism, and puts music back into the hands of the artists and their communities in the name of the basic human right of self expression.
First, before we talk about Jerk's methods of expression, let's look at Jerk's evil prototype: Drill. Drill music had great potential and roots, but like most great things, were soiled by capital and its needs. Chief Keef and the Chicago drill scene might debatably, along with Gucci Mane's discography, be the most influential music since the turn of the millennium internationally. Chicago's sound spread to New York to start New York Drill, and combined with UK's Grime sound to create the UK Drill scene. This ushered in the age of Pop Smoke and his influence, and every country having their own drill scene. Italian Drill, Chinese Drill, French Drill, all types of countries had their own version of drill, which talked about their version of living in lower class and what they had to do to survive in their respective countries. The problem was that Drill was devoured by labels by signing all of their key artists, and supporting the situations the same artists were trying to escape. This is Western Capitalism infecting music at it's perfect form: labels invest in an artist that raps about violence because that's all they see and is because of Capitalism in the first place, then pay the artist to rap about violence/immoral activities because that is what sells, and also because they have large investments in the prison industry, firearm industry, the pharmaceutical/chemical industry, etc. Drill was a creation by the lower class in Chicago to express themselves, which then turned into an international bourgeois classist genre to extract capital from and influence listeners.
Since Jerk utilizes the very essence and need of human expression, let's speak more on its methods to accomplish such and why it goes against conventional modern music frameworks. Inherently from its foundations, Jerk encourages a DIY and pure self expression with no standards or "professionalism". From the dance culture in California/Atlanta with dance videos/battles, to now social media posts and vertical/amateur recording being the preferred method of interaction (this would have been sacrilegious up until recent). As mentioned earlier, a Jerk artist might make their song on their phone, use a meme as the cover, perform at a small house party, post the song off of their phone, their artist name might be something more akin to a gamertag, the music video might be filmed on a phone vertically, you get it. Sometimes even the distribution of the song is strictly community based and DIY, a track might only be on Soundcloud, or a minute long clip in the form of a snippet for an Instagram Reel and that's it. If a Jerk artist were to sign to a major label, by Jerk's very roots, this cancels out what they have built. Now recently we have seen Jerk artists dabble in big labels' circles (Nettspend, xaviersobased, fakemink), but they seem to have partnerships (not Nettspend, his is a full on 360 deal) and not full contracts as xaviersobased and fakemink still work within DIY means and influences.
Lastly, I would like to explain how Jerk is important to now and how it will help us free ourselves from our chains of class. Historically, dance music has provided a platform for the unspoken for and disenfranchised to empower themselves and their communities. Likewise, hip hop music provided the same, but this time added the core principle of the expression of the lower class, class mobility, and class consciousness. Jerk music synthesizes the two worlds, but now including the metamodern ideals of online spaces and their cultures. Jerk music teaches us to reject a higher institution and to not relent to an estranged capitalist society, but to build and embrace community and each other. Through our respective cultures and communities we will empower each other collectively, and use each others' subjective experiences and cultures to create a new world which rejects the old one that was made by classism, supremacism, colonialism, and all of their byproducts. We can remain cynical to the world and times we live in, as we are estranged and alienated from it, but we must have empathy for ourselves and each other. We must express ourselves at all cost against this system, using any means necessary to empower ourselves and each other. I think about that one meme where a guy named Dimitri is dancing and he says (it is actually wrongfully translated but whatever it is a meme), "The club is bumping, the ladies look good, the alcohol is flowing. There is much pain in this world, but not here", as that reflects much of Jerk's roots that were during a time of economic and geopolitical collapse, wars, and major societal shifts. It makes you wonder if Jerk now is making a huge comeback because like then, we live in a time of economic and geopolitical collapse, wars, and a major societal and social Renaissance. Our dear Dimitri is all of us today: the club is bumping, everyone is coming together because we realize all we have is each other, and change is flowing. There is much pain in this world but not here, not in these online social spaces, not with each other and not in this music.