San Francisco Music News

Let me just begin by saying I know very little about hip hop. I am in my element amongst bearded vegetarians listening to indie folk and rock inspired by woodland creatures. When I decided to go to see Chicago-based hip-hop duo, The Cool Kids at the Independent on June 3rd, I recognized this. I wore my orange Nikes and slim black jeans as my best attempt to look cool in the eyes of San Francisco's coolest urban hip-hoppers. Once I arrived, Palmdale's Pacific Division (or Pac Div if you're cool) already had the crowd jumping with an optimistic youthful energy that I didn't expect. Pac Div had the crowd chanting along to their anthem "I think I might run for mayor" and got cheers and laughs when they broke into the "the running man" in unison. The trio easily pumped everyone up and got them ready to party with The Cool Kids. The Cool Kids are quite the Generation Y poster-children. Having built their fan base rapidly since forming in 2005 when they met via Myspace, Antoine "Mikey Rocks" Reed and Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersoll had their song "88" featured in video games NBA Live 08 and MLB 2K8, and catchy "Black Mags" in a 2007 Rhapsody commercial. When Chuck asked the audience how many people had downloaded their digital pre-release on iTunes, a few people cheered. Then Mikey quickly said "No, no, no. How many of you just downloaded our album somewhere on the internet ?" To which the crowd erupted in hollers. "That's totally okay with us" Mikey said, "We don't care, just get our music and listen to it". It then became very evident why they are named "The Cool Kids." Their doing-it-for-the-music attitude and twenty-first century approach is refreshing. It is new and yet brings back the best of hip-hop's Golden Age in the 80s. Before it was yacht-parties and Crystal, hip-hop was just about having a good time, hanging out with friends, and laying down some beats. The Cool Kids definitely channeled this mentality by "demonstrating their San Francisco hip-hop knowledge" and inviting fans up on stage to have a dance-off. Every song they played, including most of their new album, “The Bake Sale”, due out June 10th, had everyone moving. What I found by attending the show was that it didn't matter how much or little I knew about hip-hop, what my background was, or what I was wearing, it was just about having a good time and enjoying some good music. Despite a few times feeling like everyone was in on an inside joke that I was clueless to, I ended up just feeling like I wasn’t at a formal concert, but a house party with a bunch of... well, cool kids.