Cool Kids The Bake Sale EP Review

Grade: B-

There’s this whole world of ’80s worshipping hipster hip-hop that I’m only now becoming aware of. It’s created by Eighties babies who were probably only vaguely aware of crews like Run-DMC and the Juice Crew while growing up, but now make music that draws heavily form the aesthetic that they created. One of the most well known of these young up and comers are the Cool Kids, a Chicago-based duo made up of Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rock. They’ve spent the better part of year bubbling on the mixtape and MySpace scene, before touring to spread the word. The Bake Sale EP is their first official release.

I’m generally all for “throwback” hip-hop that harkens back to the days of yesteryear before MTV and Sprite and ringtones. I’d hazard to say I’m even more in favor of “throwback” rap than most, but like everything else, it’s not that you do it, but how you do it. I’ll even give the Cool Kids credit: everything they do on The Bake Sale EP sounds like authentic late 1980s hip-hop. The problem is even though the crew went through great lengths to make the music and lyrics sound legit, the results often sound empty and soulless.

Well, that’s not completely fair: the beats, provided by Chuck Inglish, are quite good. The snares pop, the kicks hit, and the bass rumbles, evoking the solid boom-bap of the era they pay homage to with their music. On the EP’s opener, “What Up Man,” Chuck creates a beat “with my mouth and bell,” resulting in one of their more entertaining tracks. Chuck is good crafting the slow-as-molasses muddy-thump of the era, shown on “Gold and a Pager” and “Jingling.” The beat on “What It Is” has the energy of the 110+ BPM beats that littered 12”s put out by obscure artists from NY and NJ, while “Bassment Party” unashamedly evokes 2 Live Crew’s heyday, without the overt demands for oral sex

It’s lyrical end where the Cool Kids falter. For a pair of MCs that proclaim to be the “new Black version of the Beastie Boys,” they’re awfully boring on the mic. Their anti-hipster/swagger-jacker anthem, “A Little Bit Cooler,” really isn’t as interesting as they seem to think it is. There’s a couple of bright spots, found in the goofy-fun of the aforementioned “What Up Man” and “Bassment Party,” and a verse or two on “88,” but the majority of their lyrics disappear into a fog of Cooley High and vague old school references.

As much as I’d like to commend the Cool Kids for their good intentions, I can’t. I feel bad knocking them because they’re largely innocuous, but there’s little beyond their beats that make them interesting in any way.