I first heard The Cool Kids at Pitchfork Music Festival in 2007- an awesomely cheap festival that takes place in Chicago, which is their hometown. They were on the small stage for newer acts but still drew one of the biggest crowds to their show, and it was all die hard fans from Chi enjoying the teenagers raps about bicycles and the year 1988. Next time I saw them was opening for M.I.A. at Terminal 5 in NYC during CMJ, and since then they have blown up, with their album The Bake Sale producing multiple hits like “88”, “Gold And A Pager” and the bass-heavy “Black Mags”, my personal favorite. Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish have a new album coming out soon, titled When Fish Ride Bicycles, but they posted a new FREE mixtape called Gone Fishing on their website yesterday at www.coolxkids.com, and this is one of the singles off the mix, called Champions. It’s typical Kids, using simple beats and awesome loops to highlight the always casual rhymes that they spit. If this is any indication of how their next album is going to be, then don’t be surprised when Cool Kids solidify their place as the princes of Chicago hip hop

FUN FACT: The Kids actually got their first big break from Josh Young of our favorites, Flosstradamus, who hooked them up with A-Trak and the Fools Gold label, and I’m willing to bet that the tightly knit hip hop/dj scene coming out of Chicago is poised to take over soon…