Lil' Lavair & The Fabulous Jades - Cold Heat

Year Released: 1968
Genre: Funk / Soul / Breakbeat

Description:
“Cold Heat” by Lil’ Lavair & The Fabulous Jades is one of the rawest funk 45s ever pressed, a storming instrumental cut recorded in the late 1960s on LeCam Records, a small Texas label.
Driven by a thunderous rhythm section, wiry guitar, stabbing horns, and a snare-heavy break, it epitomizes the gritty, DIY funk aesthetic beloved by crate diggers. Its unpolished sound and unrelenting groove earned it cult status decades later — inspiring the Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities 1968–1974 compilation series that took its name from this very record.

Sampling / Influence:
The track’s ferocious open drum break has been widely sampled and looped, particularly in the 1990s underground hip-hop scene, making it a go-to for producers seeking that raw, live, unprocessed funk energy. Key uses include:

The Beatnuts – “Props Over Here” (1994), which chops the break into a tight East Coast bounce.

Jurassic 5 – “Concrete Schoolyard” (1998), using its rhythm pattern as a backbone for the group’s classic cipher-style flows.

DJ Shadow – live sets and Cut Chemist’s Brainfreeze mixes, where “Cold Heat” often features as a prized break source.

Though it never charted, “Cold Heat” has achieved near-mythical status among collectors and producers alike — an essential entry in the canon of deep funk 45s whose grooves powered the golden era of sampling.