The Boys Are Back In Town: The Cool Kids - "Computer School" & "Chop" (HBK Gang)

Well, I can't say I'm rally all THAT surprised, but it sounds like Chicago's very own 1980-90's Boom-Bap revivalists The Cool Kids are finally back together... or as Chuck Inglish recently told fellow rapper-producer and apparent super-fan Tyler, The Creator, "Never stopped...It was just a time-out;" contrary to what Sir Michael Rocks (formerly Mikey Rocks) told AllHipHop back in December 2012, "We'll probably do something else, but as The Cool Kids and as Shark Week, no. Those ideas are done, and we're on something different now." Ahead of their long-rumored second album Shark Week, the loose follow-up to Gone Fishing, Tacklebox, and When Fish Ride Bicycles (2009-11), The Cool Kids simultaneously unleashed 2 new tracks on the unsuspecting Internet Monday afternoon, "Computer School" and "Chop." Chuck Inglish & Mikey Rocks' own Cake Recordings imprint will seemingly self-release their new/shelved recordings, to avoid major label set-backs that plagued their career early on; "Computer School" is nothing short of neck-snapping Retro-Future Hip-Hop in the same vein as The Cool Kids' formative Totally Flossed Out EP (roughly 2007). While "Chop," on the other hand, features a little help from Bay Area-based rap crew, HBK Gang and isn't too far off from their "throwback, perfect-for-the-whip steez as their early work," as my colleague Andy Bustard perfectly puts it. 2014 will not only usher in The Cool Kids' re-booted new album Shark Week, but head-producer Chuck Inglish's long-awaited Federal Prism full-length, Convertibles, as well. Both of which currently lack any form of solid release date, but rest assured, will be released this calendar year!