The Cool Kids

The band is getting back together. The Cool Kids -- the rap duo who rose to popularity in the mid-2000s off MySpace -- announced that members Chuck Inglish (real name Evan Ingersoll) and Sir Michael Rocks (born Antoine Reed) will be reuniting, a rep for Inglish confirmed to Billboard.

"I called Mikey and realized nothing would feel better than us being the originators again. The Cool Kids are back forreal," Inglish tweeted Wednesday night (July 13). "The Hiatus is over. We missed being us. We refuse to let people down and not be the actual group. We been through too much."

He continued, "So prepare for things to go back to they were suppsosed to be. The Cool Kids together is what is right in the world. It's on. I can't say I've felt more complete as an artist than to be back with my brother to give the world what we started. I'm not saying it to pump fake. I've felt incomplete.. I needed to bring us back for our sanity... And to give you that feeling is golden."

Sir Michael Rocks' tweets showed the feeling was mutual. "Im ready," he offered in response to Inglish's tweets. "Everything else can wait," he added. "The world is f--kn trippin right now I just want shit to feel good again.

Both members were keeping busy on the solo front. Rocks shared that his forthcoming project, Funds and Access, would be his "final solo project for a while," while Inglish released his Everybody's Big Brother LP via his Sounds Like Fun label. Together, their previous efforts include 2008's The Bake Sale EP and the 2011 full-length album When Fish Ride Bicycles. - Billboard

When news broke this past July that The Cool Kids were reuniting, I was eager. We hadn’t truly heard from the duo in five years outside of reunion rumors and loose offerings “Computer School” and “Chop," but surely, this time around, their return was imminent.

“I called Mikey and realized nothing would feel better than us being the originators again. The Cool Kids are back forreal,” Chuck Inglish tweeted to his fans.

Sir Michael Rocks also took to Twitter, “Everything else can wait. The world is fuckn trippin right now I just want shit to feel good again,” showing that him and Chuck were on the same page.

This past Saturday (September 17), the duo dropped off their brand new single, “Running Man,” featuring Houston rapper Maxo Kream. The single is the grown version of The Cool Kids; it’s Chuck and Mikey with a darker, grittier edge. The one element in “Running Man” that keeps the song abreast with their previous work is that it’s also driven by dynamite bass.

The duo has always staked themselves on being originators. They were at the forefront of a genre that they’ve definitively shaped, leaders of the first generation of internet rappers who found fame in the early years of social media through Myspace and more. As such, they’ve always been plagued by biters, one of the running themes of The Cool Kids' careers.

Mickey addresses this on “Running Man”:

Classic songs like “Black Mags” and “Mikey Rocks” were laden with heavy, dragging bass, but they still had buoyancy and verve—joining old school rap with Cool Kids’ era swagger, or what’s referred to as ‘hipster.’ In an interview with Spin in 2014, Mikey said, “There’s a lot of sharks out here, and people will bite, so you got to protect your style and let people know they can’t just take your shit.”

While growth and progression are always necessary—The Cool Kids can’t and shouldn’t be stuck in the sound we know them for—the possibility of the pair biting current trends and not rejuvenating something they already built would be disappointing. In the same interview with Spin, Mickey said, “I was coming into the game thinking people would treat it like they do in the streets. In person, when you see someone do something cool, it makes you want to do something cool yourself, but not just copy them.”

Hopefully, that’s a sentiment The Cool Kids hold on to, as they continue their long-awaited reunion with a modernization of their sound. - DJ Booth