words: swagrporters

In his track "Ignorant Shit" off of So Far gone, Drake proclaimed he was the “coolest kid out baby, word to Chuck Inglish.” Perhaps you are Drake, perhaps you are. But who is Chuck Inglish?

Drake’s is referring to the rap duo The Cool Kids, comprised of Mickey Rocks and Chuck Inglish. They've been neatly placed in the 'hipster hop' / 'alternative hip hop' box. While the swag rporters tend to find such classifications a thinly veiled and poor attempt at saying “something different”, the Cool Kids are indeed quite a breed of their own.

Like most stories, this has a beginning. Mikey Rocks approached Inglish in 2005 to purchase a beat he found on MySpace. The meeting morphed into a two hour recording session. The Cool Kids were born.

The duo booked their first performance in a DJ set at Chicago’s Town Hall Pub where they met the intrepid DJs Diplo and A-Trak; an unlikely cast or characters that would set their career in motion. Both offered to partner with The Cool Kids and while this period yielded little more than a single, the electronic influence is pervasive in the Cool Kids sound today.

The Cool Kids have received what they call 'gradual' success with songs featured in commercials and video games. However, their prolific career includes as many solo releases from the respective artists as joint projects. The duo has also teamed up with fellow Midwest rappers to form several rap collectives including P.O.C and Lupe’s All City Chess Club.

Chuck Inglish continues to produce a majority of The Cool Kids’ tracks but has made his own way as a producer and solo emcee. Inglish showcases his electronic influenced, drop-heavy beats on the Gift Raps album he produced for fellow P.O.C rapper, Chip tha Ripper and on his instrumental albums, WRKING and WRKOUT. Recently Chuck dropped a solo album, DropTops, which he claims was inspired by an evening cruising through Austin in a droptop Bonneville during SXSW.

His voice: reminiscent of Too $hort. His beats: a healthy mixture of old-school drops and EDM influences. A bridge of cultural genres and numerous side projects with fellow game-changers…Hipster hop? Call it what you will. Just know that Chuck Inglish is pretty damn cool and putting out a new sound in the game. I call it progression.

Keep an eye out for The Cool Kids’ album Shark Week coming sometime in 2014.