Chuck Inglish - WRKING. (Mixtape)

Chuck Inglish released a beat tape the other day.  He was hyping it up a few hours before the release, but it was New Year's Eve so I was out already by the time he posted it (he was working on West Coast time).  I forgot about it until today, so I'm assuming a lot of other people also lost it in the shuffle over the weekend.

Download the whole tape from his Tumblr.

Fans of Chuck should recognize quite a few beats on WRKING from his previous output.  There's no rapping, but I guess it's supposed to be more like background music to have playing while you power through whatever the hell it is you do with your time (for me, writing this post).

For those who don't know, Chuck is one half of the duo The Cool Kids.  I've posted about his partner, Mikey, before.  They're one of my personal favorite groups, and I had the pleasure of seeing them perform three different times last year.  For 2012 I resolve to take advantage of as many opportunities to see live music as my time and money will allow.

These guys broke out a few years back right as the rap scene was going through a transition phase.  The change is still happening so listen up, kids.  So rap came along in the late 70's when people like DJ Kool Herc at disco and funk parties started rhyming at the crowds to get them pumped for the dance break beats.  Then came Grandmaster Flash and others like him who took the technique known as 'scratching' and made it an art form and staple of the hip-hop sound.

During the 80's, hip-hop became an established musical genre after the mainstream success of groups like Run D.M.C.  After finding its foothold in the public's attention, hip-hop began to branch naturally into a variety of sub-genres.  Political rap was pioneered by Public Enemy, the Native Tongues collective and their affiliates produced conscious and alternative hip-hop, and the infamous gangsta rap genre was brought to the world by groups like N.W.A.  This diversification all occurred in the late 80's and early 90's and paved the way for the Pacs and Biggies of the world to enjoy massive success during the mid 90's (and beyond).

Hip-hop continued to grow and mature into the new millennium, and while it found a place among all the other genres, the creativity involved still lacked the same respect.  The Roots were, of course, well aware of this travesty even way back in 1996.  Listen to the very end of their Intro track from Illadelph Halflife: The Roots - Intro.  It might be hard to hear, but what he said was

Hip-hop records are treated as though they are disposable.  They're not maximized as product even, you know, not to mention as art.

Every hip-hop artist can trace his or her influences back to one, a few, or all of the people that I've mentioned.  What is interesting about today's emerging artists is that they are exactly the same age as modern hip-hop; they grew up together, and so, like any childhood pals, they have an innate understanding of each other.  Just as Nas and Jay-Z didn't have to convince people to listen to scratching on an album because their predecessors had already done that, musicians today are free to build off of previous artists' innovations and can begin building their own styles and sounds.

For The Cool Kids, it was great listening to older rappers exclaiming "Fight The Power!", "Fuck Tha Police!", and "Can I Kick It?" but when they started making music in their late teens, none of those sentiments were part of their world.  So they did all they could do: emulate the style and passion of their favorite artists but use their own experiences as source material.  Hence, we get songs about bicycles, and lines like

Eating a bowl of them fruity pebbles, fruity pebbles, fruity pebbles.  How gangsta is that? - A Little Bit Cooler

And there is nothing wrong with that.  I think it's great to see hip-hop come of age and have artists like Chuck who are ready and willing to experiment with their sound and rhymes to see what wrks and is cool.  Props to the kids of Generation Hip-Hop.