This weekend The Stage Miami is celebrating three years of music, and the approximately 624 parties they threw in about the past 1,000 days.
Since its inception, this little club under the highway has ushered in a new era of live music and DJs in the heart of the City of Miami.
DJ Heron's Friday-night Beats and Rhymes party alone has brought down Raekwon, KRS-One, Slum Village, Mobb Deep, and Styles P, to name a few. And there's way more classic hip-hop on deck, including this Friday's featured artist for the third anniversary throwdown: Miami's own king of culo, DJ Laz.
We here at Crossfade caught up with Heron to find out why The Stage Miami is the Design District's best party spot.
See also: Miami's Top Ten Hip-Hop DJs of All Time
5. The Music
"The live music that they have, the DJs that they have there is always phenomenal," Heron says. "It's always hot, always great music. At the Beats and Rhymes Friday-night party, we gonna have hip-hop, old school, funk, jazz, and the famous DJ Laz with his famous booty music. His classics. Everybody that knows him from back in the day before he was even talking on the radio knows that his booty sets are crazy. He's dropping an old-school DJ Laz set.
And it's also me, Heron, Self Born, Klassik, and Exes till 5 a.m. We love to play for the people and keep em' dancing. They can come up and ask us to play anything and we're gonna have it in the catalog."
See also: KRS-One, Uncle Luke, Styles P: How Did the Stage Become Miami's Best Rap Club?
4. The People
"The people who go there, it's the most humble place. Everybody loves everybody. It's a very open and welcoming place. It's an international environment with all kinds of cultural people from all over the world. Midtown and the Design District is no stress. You don't have to cross the bridge and deal with all that. It's a working-class Miami neighborhood. Great environment, great neighborhood, great people."
3. The Liquor
"We have all different kinds of flavors of alcohol. We got all these different beers too. We have like a $5 drink special every Friday, and we're getting ready to start a happy hour. The drinks are inexpensive drinks. Like I said, $5 beer, $5 drinks, and we can make anything you want."
See also: DJ Heron on Midtown Get Down at the Stage: "People Are Trying to Unite for a Positive Thing"
2. The Food
"The This Is It food truck is there every day with a different menu all the time. It's always great, and the more food you eat, the more you can drink. Or say you get the munchies after you smoke a fat one, you get yourself a hot dog or a taco or a Cuban sandwich or something. The menu varies and they don't leave the site. The truck is always there. We got our own lunch truck in our club."
1. The Girls
"It's so many exotic women that go there. Sexy beauties. So much, it's enchanting. Like, this the kind of place where you can just be you. You can wear sneakers and a fitted and the ladies be there all sexy and chic in their own way. They might be in a dress, or they might wear jeans and some boots. The girls love coming here to dance their ass off and have a good time with inexpensive drinks. The girls just make this place the best."
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