In the mid-2000s, Club music was gaining the kind of nationwide notoriety that we had never seen before. MTV’s “You Hear It First,” hosted by Sway, featured K-Swift in a 2006 segment where cameras followed her throughout the city as she DJed a private high school party before heading to The Paradox, a staple of Baltimore Club.
During this period “The Wire” was on TV in real time and featured musicians such as local artist Young Leek, who had secured a deal with Def Jam Recordings and released his hit single “Jiggle It.” Both Leek and the song’s producer Blaqstarr were mentored by K-Swift. But all of this momentum came to an almost complete stop following K-Swift’s tragic and untimely death in 2008. That year also saw the loss of local staple “The Big Phat Morning Show” with the firing of Marc Clarke and the ushering in of syndicated radio.
Now, nearly two decades later, Club music is getting the kind of worldwide exposure it hasn’t seen since K-Swift’s passing. BREAK A LEG, a collective of DJs made up of Tromac, Flotussin, and DJ-SUN, are dedicated to defying genre on the dance floor and are on a mission to ensure the history of Baltimore doesn’t get erased in the process.
Before the pandemic, instead of competing against each other, Tromac and DJ-SUN teamed up to take over both rooms of the Crown, with DJ-SUN holding his party Good Clean Fun in the Red Room, while Tromac hosted Black Gold across the hall in the Blue Room.
“We were throwing those parties and it was going really well, we’d basically take turns curating and the New Year’s one just went stupid crazy,” said DJ-SUN.
During this process, after deciding on the name BREAK A LEG, the two DJs made the decision to become a trio, adding heavy hitter Flotussin as a member to round out the energy. “With BREAK A LEG it’s always been about creating a safe space where anybody can come together to this one place where you don’t gotta judge nobody, you don’t gotta get judged,” Tromac said.
Combining two separate residencies in one place for the greater mission of Club music may seem strange, since the genre has historically been highly competitive. But BREAK A LEG highlights the ways that Club culture relies on the art of collaboration.
“When we were in these moments of mass erasure and people not getting their flowers it was competitive because we didn’t have a lot to spread around. We refuse to deal with terms of scarcity, it’s a whole world out there and they love this city,” Sun says. “It’s Baltimore to the world.”
“When we were in these moments of mass erasure and people not getting their flowers it was competitive because we didn’t have a lot to spread around. We refuse to deal with terms of scarcity, it’s a whole world out there and they love this city,” DJ-SUN says. “It’s Baltimore to the world.”
Throughout 2023 and 2024, the team curated and hosted multiple events, bringing notable dance music artists such as Pouty’s Rage, DJ SWISHA, and RP Boo along with local legends like Dee Clark and DJ Technics from music lover’s hard drives to the dance floor. In the process, BREAK A LEG has kept the gritty and underground nature of Club music alive, staying true to its cause while also expanding its reach.
Their thoughtful approach to curation brings to town DJs and producers whose tours will often skip Baltimore because of a lack of infrastructure.
“Other cities if you love something you can do it and get support and there’s an infrastructure and a pipeline, Baltimore never had that,” says Sun.
Now, Club music is ingrained in everything from hip-hop subgenres like New York drill to K-Pop. But as a result of this dilution, it is often credited to New Jersey or Philadelphia, while only the true lovers, locals, and pioneers know that it all came from Baltimore.
“Club music in general, whether we’re talking about Baltimore, Philly, Jersey, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, South London, any of these places that have their version of Club music, these are hard cities and I think that this experience is multi generational,” says Sun. “It’s a shared experience.”
“Club music in general, whether we’re talking about Baltimore, Philly, Jersey, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, South London, any of these places that have their version of Club music, these are hard cities and I think that this experience is multi-generational,” says Sun. “It’s a shared experience.”
But despite its influence on the other genres of Club, Baltimore Club has its own feeling that is in the blood of many of us who grew up on Club music, hearing it on the radio, at school dances, and in the streets as soon as the weather broke. Baltimore Club differs from other Club music genres in multiple ways. Though most forms of Club music are characterized by the use of sampling from popular songs, vocal chops, and sharp song breaks, Baltimore Club usually hews tightly to 120-130 beats per minute resulting in a fast-paced, consistent groove, while Jersey and Philly alter the original kick drum pattern and up the tempo to 140 BPM. The change can be felt energetically as the higher the BPM the faster, brighter, and more energetic the song feels. But it also loses something in the process.
BREAK A LEG’s recognition of the roots of Club, even as it has expanded beyond Baltimore, has captured the attention of other artists, such as rapper and comedian Zack Fox, who reached out to Tromac in 2025 to curate the lineup for his stop at Baltimore Soundstage for an event that would be branded with the BREAK A LEG logo and include their frequent collaborators Cadeem LaMarr and cash.liss. Afterward, a secret rave, where Fox played a DJ set, allowed the touring artist a real sense of Baltimore culture, where you still maintain a “regular” cool, no matter your status.
“Club music is a genre that is so, so serious about being so unserious” says Sun, who adds that “the ultimate cheat code for staying cool” is “having the same level of interaction with everybody whether it’s a 30 year career legend or the newest ‘clouted up’ 21 year old DJ.”
“Club music is a genre that is so, so serious about being so unserious,” says Sun, who adds that “the ultimate cheat code for staying cool” is “having the same level of interaction with everybody whether it’s a 30-year career legend or the newest ‘clouted up’ 21-year-old DJ.”
After the Fox show, Soundstage wanted to continue a partnership with the collective, who returned to the venue earlier this month without the cosign of a national headliner, collaborating instead with DJ Dolla’s event, The Dolla Sto’, fusing the two events into an epic party dubbed Leg Sto.
This spring, BREAK A LEG brings the sound, spirit, and energy of Baltimore to Brooklyn for shows on April 16 and May 25.
As the genre continues to expand and speak to people around the world, Club music remains forever connected to the authenticity and realness of Baltimore. And the spirit of collaboration, rather than competition, fostered by BREAK A LEG has placed Club music pioneers in the same lineup as up-and-comers in a way that the city hasn’t really seen in the last decade.
“The biggest sign [that] what we’re doing is successful is the fact that new and upcoming creatives, DJs, and musicians who really love this can put the work in, like DJ Dolla, he can come in and not have to build from the ground up,” says Sun. “There are some blueprints now, there is new infrastructure that Baltimore hasn’t always had in these past few generations.”