"Pennies" - The Cool Kids

Here's the latest from the Cool Kids. The beats are still buzzing, still soft-serve slow. The rhymes, on the other hand, aren't quite as memorable or catchy as some of the stuff on last year's The Bake Sale, but the chorus is still fresh as hell. As for this video, it's pretty so-so, most notably serving to highlight that MC Chuck Inglish should absolutely never wear an undersized, vintage Pistons jersey on camera ever again. Also, gator head remote-control cars are all the way down.


From Pitchfork


Oh, and click HERE to read my PopMatters review of the Cool Kids at Highline Ballroom 12/08


Kick it in the city when we in around town...

"I skip on the handshakes, I'm straight."

If you're like me, you miss out on a lot of new stuff simply because you can't muster the emotional effort it takes keeping stride with the hype machine (99% of the time a wasted effort). Last year, though, I happened to catch the Cool Kids–a great new hip hop duo out of Chicago–when they opened for Q-Tip at the Highline Ballroom in New York.

Originally MySpace sensations, MCs Mikey and Chuck have gotten a ton of multimedia exposure over the last twelve months. Among the things they've done is appear performing their hit single, "Black Mags" in a recent Rhapsody commercial, tour with M.I.A., and become bonus playable characters in this year's installment of the NBA 2K franchise. Too bad they seem to be Pistons fans.

Released last summer, their album The Bakesale is a compact affair held together by über spare homemade beats and a healthy amount of pitch adjustment. It's real success, though, lies in its infectious, easy-going vibe and catchy lyrics. The songs are positive, cocky, and tons of fun–adjectives you really can't tether to the majority of mainstream rappers these days (and don't go pinning it all on emo king Kanye, either).

"Black Mags"