The Cool Kids Music Videos , Ringtones, Pictures and Photos including Interview (Part 2), Delivery Man, Interview (Part 1), Black Mags Music Videos on Blastro

The Cool Kids

Take two parts Lupe Fiasco, substitute his skateboard for a BMX bike, toss in a half cup of 80’s hip-hop (Rakim and Gang Starr will do fine) and add a dash of hipster-friendly electro dance music. Stir thoroughly, and you have a recipe for The Cool Kids, Chicago’s latest rap sensation. Following in the footsteps of Kanye West, Chi-Town has become something of a mecca for alternative hip-hop artists, with The Cool Kids being one of the most recent acts to experience critical acclaim with their minimalist, bass-heavy electro-inspired beats and laid-back, tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Contrary to the sort of rap you might find in Dirty South strongholds like Atlanta or Houston, The Cool Kids would rather rap about parties or bicycles than AKs or Chevrolets - Young Jeezy they ain’t. But that’s probably a good thing.

Cool Kids members Antoine "Mikey Rocks" Reed and Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersoll both grew up in the suburbs around Chicago, eventually meeting in 2005 when Antoine contacted Evan over the internet to ask about purchasing a beat that was listed on his MySpace. What began as a quick meeting at Evan’s house to discuss the sale of the beat turned into an all-day recording session when the duo began rapping together over the myriad homebrew beats stored on Evan’s computer. They soon decided to form a hip-hop group, calling themselves The Cool Kids because they thought it didn’t sound like a rap group, thinking "The Cool Kids" could just as well be the name of a rock band or an indie dance duo - making it easier for them to book gigs at a variety of spots locally and not get pigeonholed as just another guns-and-drugs rap act.

Antoine and Evan began to make a name for themselves in the Chicago hip-hop scene, even receiving attention from Pitchfork Media (a major music website with a great deal of influence among indie music fans) despite the fact their only recorded material available at the time was the tracks they had available for free on their MySpace. After making their major-festival debut at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival in July 2007 The Cool Kids became a hot commodity outside of Chicago, touring with Sri Lankan hip-hop sensation M.I.A. and making a number of appearances on the 2008 Rock The Bells tour alongside acts like Nas and Mos Def.

Currently, The Cool Kids are signed to indie label Chocolate Industries (Struggle Inc., Money Mark) through their own personal label C.A.K.E. Recordings. Though there are a number of underground mixtapes and bootlegs to their name, The Cool Kids’ first official release The Bake Sale (EP) didn’t come out until June 2008. Fueled by the critical acclaim The Bake Sale has so far garnered in the mere weeks following its release - spearheaded by tracks like the retro BMX banger "Black Mags" and the too-cool party song "Bassment Party" - The Cool Kids are already hard at work on their full length debut When Fish Ride Bicycles, which should hit store shelves by the end of 2008.

From Lastfm:

The Cool Kids are a hip hop duo from Chicago, Illinois consisting of Antoine "Mikey Rocks" Reed and Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersoll (originally from Detroit). They are signed to the independent Chocolate Industries via their own label C.A.K.E. Recordings. After meeting in 2005, and releasing three mixtapes onto the internet through their MySpace page, they released their debut EP The Bake Sale in 2008. They are now preparing to release their debut LP, When Fish Ride Bicycles, sometime in 2010.

The members of The Cool Kids met in 2005 when Reed found a beat on the Internet that Ingersoll had produced. The two met to discuss terms of the beat's sale, and eventually ended up recording for two hours. They were inspired by hip hop in the 1980s and artists like Eric B. & Rakim. Ingersoll began promoting the new duo's material, and it was eventually booked by Josh Young of Flosstradamus for a DJ performance. At this performance (in a venue called Town Hall Pub), the duo met the electronic musician Diplo who offered to release a mixtape of their unreleased tracks titled Totally Flossed Out on his label Mad Decent, though it was eventually released on C.A.K.E. Recordings. They also received an offer from the DJ A-Trak to sign to his Fool's Gold label, which they did, but only for one single.

Up until recently, all material had been released solely on the band's MySpace page?their recording contract came after performances at the CMJ Music Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival, on July 15, 2007. Eventually, The Cool Kids signed to Chocolate Industries, another independent label, which had previously been the label of rapper Lady Sovereign. Ingersoll has been the producer for tracks released thus far, but both work in rapping and production.

They have been and currently are on tour, opening for M.I.A. One of the duo's singles, "Black Mags", is featured in a late 2007 Rhapsody TV commercial, along with Sara Bareilles. In the same year, the group collaborated with Lil Wayne and DJ Benzi through the Internet on a track entitled "Gettin' It", which will reportedly appear on the DJ's future album Get Right. The band has been featured in the video game NBA Live 08 with the song "88", and they have been featured in the video game "NBA 2K9 with the song "2k pennies", and in the episode "The First Cut Is the Deepest" from HBO's TV series Entourage with the song "I Rock." They were listed in Rolling Stone's Ten Artists to Watch in 2008.

In December 2009 they released a free four track mixtape called Merry Christmas with DJ Don Cannon via www.djdoncannon.com

The tape was produced by Don Cannon, Chuck Inglish, and First Team All Stars.

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.

From Wikipedia:

The Cool Kids are a hip hop group from the Mid-West United States. The duo consists of Antoine "Mikey Rocks" Reed (originally from Matteson, Illinois) and Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersoll (originally from Mount Clemens, Michigan), they are based in Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan. Self-described as "the new black version of the Beastie Boys," The Cool Kids' music has been released primarily to the independent Chocolate Industries via their own label C.A.K.E. Recordings. Reed and Ingersoll have collaborated with several other musical artists and made appearances in numerous media, such as Asher Roth, Kenna, The Bloody Beetroots, Drake, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, and Maroon 5.