The Cool Kids Take Hip-Hop Back to the '80s

Hip-hop sensation the Cool Kids might come off as too, ahem, cool for school, catapulting from an online hit to Pitchfork Music Festival performer and MIA's fall tour opener—without ever releasing an album. But Chicago Magazine paints Antoine Reed, 20, and Evan Ingersoll, 23, as two inexperienced Chicagolanders whose winning formula relies on staying simple and accessible.

The Cool Kids, who met via MySpace, roll out a debut EP in March, with funky rhythms and irreverent lyrics more like old-school LL Cool J or Beastie Boys than current odes to bling, sex, and violence. "I'm not going to talk about a bunch of jewels because not everybody has a bunch of diamonds," says Reed. (More The Cool Kids stories.)