Raymond Chandler is ready to get funky.

The psychology and human resources junior's 18-person team, named TP2K3, is ready to strut its stuff at the annual lip-sync contest known as "Fake the Funk" - with the 13th installment set for 7 p.m. Friday at Breslin Center.

Leon Rogers from BET's "Comic View" will host the event. The theme for the evening is old-school versus new-school. Acts range from The Temptations to Chandler's impersonation of R. Kelly.

"R. Kelly is one of my favorite male/hip-hop artists," he said. "He has a lot of talent and I have a lot of talent, so it seemed like it could work. R. Kelly is so popular and he has a million songs, it was really hard to define what would be a crowd pleaser.

"The whole vision was hard to put together."

Chandler, also a member of the dance troupe Urban Dreams, said his group has been practicing since mid-September on a six-song R. Kelly medley, and members have even created some of their own costumes.

Some members are veterans, such as Chandler, but some of his group members are rookies.

Any props or costumes come out of the participants' wallets, "Fake the Funk 13" Event Coordinator Joshua Gillespie said. Gillespie, whose student group Bombsquad Productions organizes the show, has been planning "Fake the Funk 13" since last year's show ended.

One of Gillespie's first goals was to make sure there were not as many duplicate acts this year as there were last year, when Nelly acts inundated the contest. Hence, this year's theme, where every artist from Michael Jackson to Beyoncé Knowles will be represented.

Prizes totaling $2,400 will be distributed to the top three acts, with nine acts lined up for the show. There are 16 judges, made up of faculty, staff, students, event organizers and radio personalities. Each group gets seven minutes on stage and is judged on costumes, dancing, crowd response, time and, of course, lip-synching.

Gillespie said he is expecting 4,000-7,500 spectators, which means the crowd response could be critical for the acts. The event has grown since its heyday in Brody Hall, where 200 people showed up for the first event that promised "laughter and social relief."

This year, about 25 acts auditioned alone, some having as many as 20 to 30 members apiece.

Bombsquad President Lashaun Pritchett said her group took over the event four years ago, and since then, it moved from the Auditorium into Breslin Center three years ago. This is, arguably, the group's biggest event of the year.

"We've been doing a lot of freshman seminars this year," Pritchett said. "To do 'Fake the Funk' with 8,000 people is quite different from teaching 24 people in G-8 Holden Hall."

Bombsquad members agree the reason for the increased event attendance throughout time is because the event is, simply put, fun.

"We used to think it was the money that drew people here, but it's the fact of being on stage in front of thousands that draws them in," said Gillespie, who also is the Bombsquad adviser. "It happens once a year and people just wait for it."

Gillespie said the event has been wooed by major corporations, and he might look into having a sponsor for the event next year. A sponsor could mean more celebrities at the show and bigger prizes, he added.

Meanwhile, this year's event also will feature Spartan Soul and other dance groups throughout the three-hour spectacle. Some musicians who actually sing also will be on hand to perform some songs in a crowd-response contest.

"Getting into the music industry is tough," Gillespie said. "When you get 5,000-6,000 people in the audience, that's a capital audience."

But Gillespie added that the event is not solely for students of color, with the event's crowd getting more diverse with each show.

And the acts are more diverse, too.

Food industry management senior Paul Williams' group went old-school and chose to emulate The Temptations. Williams, who will be Melvin Franklin for one night only, said his group will sing a three-song medley, featuring the classic "My Girl."

But putting together an act was difficult for many reasons, including scheduling conflicts and dancing, he added.

"This was our first time dancing, so we had to learn the choreography," he said, adding that a Temptations DVD helped their cause. "Starting off, it took us a long time to learn," he said. "But by the third song - we took off.

"We wanted to do something to cap off our senior year and what better way is there to go out with a bang?"