[Rob In Stereo] Hip-Hop Reboot

Courtesy the Cool Kids

Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish make up The Cool Kids.

by Rob Hamilton
July 30, 2008

There is a growing trend in the entertainment industry—especially in the movie and comic book mediums—of rebooting. Rebooting often occurs when a story has either run its course or has fallen out of favor with audiences. The fruits of one of the most recent examples was on display when “The Dark Knight” hit theaters. Audiences had grown tired of the over the top, comic book-y “Batman” portrayed in “Batman and Robin,” and the studios followed the masses’ wishes. Joker and Two Face have both been killed in Batman movies, yet there they both are in “Dark Knight.” This reboot has taken elements of things that worked in the original movies (bleak tone) while omitting other things that didn’t (Joker dancing around to Prince).

Like the movie industry, the hip-hop music industry has heard growing unrest from its fans that grew up with Jay-Z, 2Pac, A Tribe Called Quest, and other legends of the mid-’90s. The fact that the last five years has produced only one definite immortal act (Kanye West) is a testament to the lack of interest in cultivating performers by the industry. Whereas hip-hop used to give equal play to the DJs and the MCs, there is no balance anymore as the MCs’ job now is to stay out of the way of the hot beat and not upstage it.

Enter Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish from Chicago, and the hip-hop reboot movement has begun. The Cool Kids, who have built a following in the Windy City, recently released their debut LP, “The Bake Sale.”

The Cool Kids have a stripped back sound that would fit in 20 years ago. Their beats are decidedly and confidently old-school, sounding as if they were produced with a Casio keyboard and an eight-track recorder. They rarely stray beyond drum machines, bass thumps, and synthesized sounds or voices. Yet in this simplicity there is a hypnotic complexity. The opening song, “What up Man,” has a beat consisting of a drum machine and three alternating voices saying, “tick,” “clap” and “bass,” which is as compelling as any beat on the Top 40 right now.

The rhymes, too, are throwback. They make reference to themselves as “The new black version of the Beastie Boys,” which is an apt comparison. The mood and content of the lyrics are reminiscent of Licensed to Ill/Paul’s Boutique-era Beasties. The braggadocio and playful tone is both self-assuredly geeky (multiple “Star Wars” references, extensive quoting of “Safety Dance” on the song “88”) and indisputably cool (“I separate people from squares like a nicotine patch”).

The shortcoming of “The Bake Sale” is found in the overall flow of the record. While the two MCs share the DJ duties, there is frustratingly little scratch work on “The Bake Sale,” a trait that is present in and vital to most minimalist classics from the ’80s. This lack of identifying traits leads to the beats—though great on an individual level—blending together with continuous listening. With the exception of two up-tempo songs, “What It Is” and “Bassment Party,” the beats are essentially uniform in pace and not enough differentiates each one to make the album flow coherently and maintain your interest.

The Cool Kids have certainly hit on something with “The Bake Sale.” By stripping hip-hop of all the bells and whistles that have been added to it in the past few years, they have something that resembles what we grew up on. It will be exciting to see where this reboot leads.

 
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