As you walk down the tapestry-laden stairway you can feel the bass of the beat inside your chest. Amid the hordes of people and hookahs is the reverberation of vocals over an array of instruments, mixed with the dim ambiance the lounge provides. By entering this place you've set foot in one of the emerging components of the budding original music scene in State College.

You've officially met Hip-Hop Anonymous (HHA), a half-open mic, half prewritten set show of live music, which will be holding a special Halloween show at 9:30 tonight at Tall Shiva Hookah Lounge, 224 W. College Ave.

HHA regulars all have their own way of describing the phenomenon the scene is slowly building. Jason Browne (junior-mechanical engineering), aka Agress, explained the open atmosphere the stage provides.

"We're the people who host it but other people come in to perform. Hip-Hop Anonymous is everyone on campus, not just us. It's all welcome; poetry, beat boxing, free-styling," he said.

Jonny Barton (senior-theater arts), aka Jonny B, agreed.

"There's no [expletive] ... everybody wants everyone to do well, to get a chance to put their stuff out. There's no greed. It's a big orgy of hip-hop," Jonny B said with a laugh.

Founder Jay Buim (junior-film and video) added his take.

"It's an open mic for everyone who wants to come down and see some good original music. It's the perfect venue for this. We can work with anyone, any style," he said.

Things weren't always this way. When Buim arrived at Penn State three years ago as a fledgling DJ looking for adventure, he quickly realized that Happy Valley did not seem to be a place for it.

As one of the biggest schools in the country, hosting many clubs and upward of 40,000 students, there surely had to be a hip-hop music scene for Buim to lay his beats on. The frustration that followed the realization that there was no such scene gave birth to his support group for hip-hop addicts. This brainchild was named Hip-Hop Anonymous.

"This is one of the largest schools in America. It's too big for it's own good. It's hard to find people with certain interests. I just wanted a place where people could showcase their talent and perform and meet people with the same interests. You'd think there'd be a huge music scene, but it consists of cover bands. Instead of sitting around complaining, people should do something about it. That's why Jeff (Van Fossan) started Roustabout! I think that's important," Buim said.

Buim wasted no time finding the Hookah Lounge as a more than adequate setting to stage the open mic. Because of an outburst of interest in the event, HHA grew from a sparsely attended exhibition game to a full throttle playoff series, with momentum growing simultaneously with crowd size. By the end of the first year, the shows were selling out and some people had to enjoy the show from the inconvenient angle of outside the lounge's front door.

"It started in November of last year. The first one went pretty well so we continued in the spring. We built momentum and ended with a show Larry Johnson performed at and we recorded an LP," Buim said.

The burden of the show rapidly became too much for one man to handle. In these early stages, Buim hooked up with a few other prominent scene-figures to push the show into the limelight and satisfy the need for their hip-hop fix. Among these hip-hop junkies stood proudly Jonny B, who realized the importance of a hip-hop venue in a town more familiar with cows.

"People are skeptical to hearing hip-hop here. It's a melting pot though. It's not just people from Pennsylvania. There's a lot of talented people from all over the place," he said.

The culmination of this talent is augmented quasi-monthly and held together by strict bonds of love for music. Event co-host Jordan Strauss (sophomore-psychology) identifies the glue holding together the model hip-hop scene.

"It's basically the chemistry between the performers and a love for music," Strauss said.

Although music is obviously a prominent element in any music scene, Agress stressed that there are multiple aspects to hip-hop besides rapping, which is a common misconception.

"Rap is only one part of hip-hop. We want to encompass the rest of what hip-hop is," he said. "There's DJs, MCs, graffiti artists, break dancers. I wish more of all the types came out."

One of the more popular aspects of hip-hop is battling. At HHA the warfare goes down but in the end its harmless, friendly fire. Jonny B, notorious for his seasoned skill on the battlefield, supported the claim.

"It's cool having a battle when no feelings are hurt. It's fun to win, but not necessarily fun to make them feel like losers," he said.

But sometimes the scrimmages extend beyond the borders of the Hookah Lounge. Performers talked about times they'd be spotted in public and forced into the spotlight on the spot.

"It's fun getting recognized. People will challenge us to a battle and then we'll kill them and leave," Buim said.

The group feels it has earned hip-hop authenticity.

"We prove we live it," Jonny B. added. "It's cool to know what you're doing is affecting people."

As the hosts prepared for the upcoming show, it dawned on them the amount of work they'd have to be doing. Because of people graduating and new faces in the Penn State crowd every year, keeping the show in the eye of the public has been a constant task, Agress said.

"We have to hype it every year, people graduate and leave and then our work starts again," he said.

The immense amount of work involved with promotion includes the hanging of roughly 400 flyers and the distribution of a scattered hundred flyers to hand out to people on the street. The group put together a mailing list with show information, news, parties and performances that audience members can sign up for at the shows, Buim said.

"The worst part is putting up a hundred flyers and then the next day coming back with someone else's flyers on top of them. So we've got to put them up again," he said.

Last spring the group made a 20-track CD featuring multitudes of performers from the open-mic night. At this year's Halloween show another disc will be unveiled to the public described by its makers as a seasonal treat superior to candy.

"It's our special Halloween show. We're giving away CDs with some special Halloween tracks on a little Halloween disc EP," Buim said.

After a ten-minute tangent on uneducated voters and the generation gap, Agress figured out the reason for the smooth sailing of this hip-hop vessel.

"That always happens. We will be planning for a show and then we'll start talking about poverty levels. That's why we click," he said.