The Cool Kids are Mikey Rocks (né Antoine Reed), a nineteen-year-old from Matteson, Illinois, and Chuck (né Evan Ingersoll), a twenty-three-year-old from Mount Clemens, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The band reports, via e-mail, that "we actually met via MySpace and originally were only going to make beats and produce for other artists." That doesn't seem to be what happened. Check their MySpace Page —you'll see that they have created a substantial amount of noise for themselves. (Though both are producers, Chuck produced the Cool Kids tracks that are currently available.) Their songs sample the eighties directly, taking bits of Eric B & Rakim's "Paid in Full" and Jay-Z's "99 Problems," itself something of a throwback to the sound of the first Beastie Boys album. If 1988 is not available, the Cool Kids will probably settle for 1989, a year for which they also express fondness, along with Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," and the New York night club Rooftop, a popular eighties venue that closed when these two young men were even younger. - The New Yorker

"From their rope chains to their spare, bass-heavy beats, Chuck and Mikey bring a knowing wink to the style of Eighties heroes like Eric B and EPMD. Their anthem, "88," cops a mantra from Nas' "Made You Look": "Do the Smurf, do the wop, baseball bat/Rooftop like I'm bringin' '88 back." And yet on singles like "I Rock" and "Black Mags," the duo sounds effortlessly of-the-moment, earning its boast of being "the black Beastie Boys."" – Rolling Stone

"How does repetition become invention? Because for all of their old-school tropes (EPMD-style photos; Eric B.-style gold ropes; big, goofy sneakers), the Cool Kids somehow avoid sounding old. The Chicago duo's beats are simple and their flows are slow, methodical, and clearly enunciated. But their simplicity is exciting because of its nuance." - Pitchfork

www.myspace.com/gocoolkids