'There Is Nothing New Under The Sun' -The Cool Kids, Silkk The Shocker, EPMD, & Mike Jones (who?), Mike JONES

Don't get me wrong, friends; I dig The Cool Kids. They do bring something to the table, I'm just not sure of how 'different' it is. It's banging, but a lotta folks don't do the history. There are a lotta kids who would like to stay blissfully unaware. They say, "Oh, the Cool Kids, they're a breath of fresh-air. They don't sound like nobody out right now." Fact is, they don't, but they sound like LOTS of people that have been out for a while.

I was there when all these kids that LOOOOOVE Li'l Wayne and all the stuff coming from the South now would turn their noses up so quickly at anything that wasn't from somewhere north of Cincinnati and east of Pittsburgh. They were NOT buying 'Weezy' records, they were not endorsing that sound and they were not trying to hear it in the club. The only place you were hearing anything that was remotely like that was in the 'urban' clubs. I know because I was there and I was DJing. All the backpackers stayed at home and 'cyphered'. Now, the backpackers have jobs, kids, responsibilities, disposable income, and need something, ANYthing to make them feel alive again. And they missed a lotta this stuff on the first two or three go-arounds. It ain't the Cool Kids' fault.

Now, when I heard 'Stove Top Oven Fresh Based Goods', I liked it and I like it now. All the Cool Kids songs are likeable at the onset; their beats KNOCK, okay? They straight BANG. But, there is nothing ground-breaking in what they are doing and they are not the saviors of 'culture'...if anything they took a lotta old-school formulas and made them LOUDER and sometimes, played with the tempo...

Listen to this...

THE COOL KIDS - 'STOVE-TOP OVEN FRESH BAKED GOODS'



...now check this out...

SILKK THE SHOCKER - 'LET ME HIT IT'



But, I'll bet dollar-to-donuts that if you were to walk up on one of these kids that SWEARS by the Cool Kids, they would NEVER acknowledge the Cool Kids/No Limit/Durty South connection because they know nothing of it. And if you did ask them what Southern Rap they like, my money is on the response being 'Li'l Wayne'. I mean, their dudes are cribbing sounds from Master P's little brother? There is one example, right? Try this on for size...

THE COOL KIDS - 'BLACK MAGS'



Is that a 'screw'ed chorus? Now, this...how soon they forget!

MIKE JONES, SLIM THUG, and PAUL WALL - 'STILL TIPPIN'




I could do this all day. While I do enjoy the Cool Kids and I will continue to, I'll always feel like I have already heard their records, even when I know I haven't. I remeber when the shit that they are influenced by was hitting the first (and second and ...) time AND I remember that there were still cats that the hipsters either don't know about, won't acknowledge, or are too embarrassed that their 'boys' cribbed from their styles to give props to.

And ay, yo...



There is nothing new under the Sun.