The Cool Kids are the current it boys of the indie hip hop circuit, and rightfully so. Their stripped down, throwback beats and rhymes manage to be both nostalgic and fresh, a nice change of pace for the current corporate hip hop climate.
It looks like 1991 outside The Independent, as the neon coated people barely make it through Will Call in time for the main act to hit the stage. It’s a packed room full of people ready to get down, with a haze of smoke hanging over their heads. The threesome takes the stage at about 11. The performance was high energy, and in a way, endearing. It’s my second time to see these guys, and they’re still riding the wave of about a 5 month long heavy buzz- and you can tell they are loving every minute up it. Perhaps they really are cool kids.
The sound was very vocals forward, which felt a little unbalanced considering how infectious their beats are. The crowd knows quite well about 4 of their songs…pretty good since their album still hasn’t been released. Their position as the new Beastie Boys is working.
Towards the end of the set, some interesting events happened. First, they invited a fan on stage to show off his pop and lock skills, which were quite good. Then, one of the HOTTUB girls, who one can only presume and hope was completely drunk off her ass, started dancing around. She took a crutch from someone in the crowd and used it as an ad hoc stripper pole. She opened bottles of water and poured them on the crowd in a room that wasn’t hot, and she did it three more times. She somehow got her hands on the mic and attempted to freestlye rap, to boos from the crowd. She sat back down at the back of the stage, and then randomly got up and dove into the crowd, presumably at two girls who were laughing at her, and ended up flat on the ground. After crawling back on the stage, she mooned the crowd. Yes, this all happened…and The Cool Kids handled it like gentlemen. If I were one of them, I would have been all like “bitch, get off my stage”.
And, on a personal note, people are cool who still play SEGA (listen to A Little Bit Cooler).
OVERALL: 7.5/10
The Cool Kids performance: 7.5/10
venue (The Independent): 7/10
crowd/scene: 6.5/10
value ($13/ticket): 8/10
memorable: 7.5/10
I’m Mikey
Gold and a Pager
Black Mags
A Little Bit Cooler
The Cool Kids in a Rhapsody commercial:
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That chick was something else. When she stole the mike and started to rhyme, the first verse wasn’t bad and people looked at her with interest. But then she got lost and started say “1, 2, 3, 4 get your booty on the dancefloor …. 5, 6, 7, 8” and that’s when the crowd called her out. It was fantastic.
p.s. What did you think of the upstairs VIP view at the Independent?