Cold Lampin'

Saturday night offers little in the way of live hip-hop, but if you head to Hotel Vegas, you can groove to vintage wax like DJ Kool Herc always intended.

That’s because this weekend marks the first installment of monthly throwdown Cold Lampin’, wherein DJs Shorty Stump (towering White Ghost Shivers string-bender Westen Borghesi) and Second Liner (Breakaway Records co-owner Gabe Vaughn) spin vinyl hip-hop classics from the golden era, 1983-1993, a period best defined by artists like Black Sheep, Heavy D, De La Soul, and Big Daddy Kane.

Similarly, the two have spent the past six years of second Sundays running their soul and doo-wop-heavy Sock Hops, pushing obscure records from the Fifties and Sixties while their vast hip-hop record collections gathered dust. Borghesi thought about the two styles for a minute and realized he could be throwing the same kind of party for a different kind of scene.

“Hip-hop artists in the Eighties were still able to sample all those dope funk and soul records from the Sixties and Seventies, before they changed the [sampling] laws,” says Borghesi. “Those beats and samples undoubtedly contributed to the high level of creativity that was exploding back then, and you had great MCs as well.

“Super dope beats, lyrics, and rapping will never fail!”

True that. Borghesi added that maintaining “a good mix of up-tempos, slow and lows, and call and responses” will be critical to keeping energy levels inside Hotel Vegas on high throughout the night.

“That, and making sure the bass is hitting’ hard as hell,” a detail no doubt already considered by Big Daddy Kane.

Here’s hoping the night goes down a whole lot like that Body Rock tribute to the Native Tongues movement that Riders Against the Storm threw in May, when about 80 people crammed into Hotel Vegas’ tiny confines and rapped along to Busta Rhymes’ verse midway through A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario.”

Doors at 8pm, with b-boys and b-girls taking to the floor around 10. Party’s free and runs all night.