Area15’s outdoor A-Lot is full of “Love” at the moment—Keyshia Cole’s, to be exact. The crowd’s a throng of swaying bodies, harmonizing to the chorus of one of the R&B singer’s most acclaimed singles of 2005—and that’s before she even hits the stage.
From an outside perspective, this is surely a Keyshia Cole concert. But in all actuality, it’s another night at Simp City, Las Vegas’ leading R&B party, where fans of everyone from Trey Songz to Bryson Tiller and Jeremih gather under one roof to run back the classics that put us in our feels.
“We are at the forefront of R&B in Las Vegas right now. I want to make the claim that we brought it back as young’uns,” says Dame Dacuma, who founded Leverage Events and Simp City with his friends, Brilan Kelly and Jay Esguerra, in 2018. “We were the high school kids that always listened to what our parents or what our older siblings were listening to. So we got to enjoy that and kind of bring the 2000s, ‘90s music back into Vegas.”
Simp City, in many ways, has changed Dacuma, Kelly and Esguerra’s lives. It’s also what has kept Esguerra feeling connected to his late father, who shared his love of R&B. “He showed up to Simp City even when he was sick, and supported it from the beginning,” he says.
Six years in, and with an increasingly growing guest list, Simp City has touched down at some of the best venues on the Strip, but its crowning achievement has been clinching a residency at Drai’s Nightclub and Beachclub. The significance of that isn’t lost on Dacuma, who says Drai’s was the first nightclub to host Simp City.
“It was cool touching a lot of these different venues, and then finally circling back to Drai’s and being able to call it home,” Dacuma says. “Drai’s was always the club to go to, being younger. So to finally be able to sign a residency and party at the highest level as a 26-year-old in Las Vegas and to see how much the city’s grown, it’s super dope.”
“We’ve done Daylight. We’ve done LIV Nightclub. We’ve done Hard Rock Live. But Drai’s has that presence of we’re touching some of the stages of the biggest acts ever,” Kelly says. “It holds that weight to know we’re creating this type of feeling and energy in the No. 1 hip-hop club.”
In college, Kelly remembers attending R&B Only, a renowned R&B party in Los Angeles with a “dope, nostalgic dance hall type of vibe,” and that experience alone was enough to convince him Vegas needed and deserved something similar.
Within months, Esguerra had flyers ready to go for what would eventually become the fastest-growing R&B party in town. “I don’t think the goal was to throw a crazy big party,” Kelly says. “I think it was really just to always have a space that we could go to. The party gets bigger, but we’re really just kickin’ it.”
Demand has grown for R&B-centric events in a similar way goth and emo nights have become such a hit. In the last year, Seven:45, an R&B speakeasy, has garnered a following for its vinyl listening lounge. And with Strip residencies from New Edition, Jodeci and DJ Cassidy bolstering the scene, there’s no limit to what a party like Simp City can achieve. Kelly shouts out new clubs like Downtown’s Substance, which he believes will bridge the gap between smaller theaters and larger venues for more eclectic events, too.
“I think that’s where you could test a lot of stuff like afrobeat, amapiano. We plan on tapping into a lot of different genres other than Simp,” he says.
The founders have started expanding Simp City into San Diego, Orange County and Salt Lake City, with more cities to come. And as with Keyshia Cole, star-studded appearances are to be expected. It’s a Vegas party, after all.
“If I’m from LA, or if I’m from Arizona and Texas, I’m looking at Vegas like, yo, it’s a different style of nightlife and people expect that,” Kelly says. “It’s cool to give them the highest form of entertainment that we feel is worthy of saying that it’s from Vegas.”
SIMP CITY September 1, 10:30 p.m., $20-$30. Drai’s Nightclub, leveragepresents.com.
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