Chicago vs. Detroit: The Cool Kids Compare Home Towns

Appropriate for our age, Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish, the two emcees that make up The Cool Kids, met on the internet, MySpace specifically. Mikey, who hails from Chicago, heard a beat that Chuck, who hails from Detroit, had produced and felt strongly enough about the music's quality that he reached out. The two up-and-comers met to record, thus solidfying one of underground rap's biggest names.

From there the story should be a swift climb to the top but ascension is rarely smooth. Bumps and delays kept pushing back the group's proper debut. As of July 12, we can officially get our hands on When Fish Ride Bicycles, the first studio album from The Cool Kids.

Complex met with Chuck and Mikey to talk about their respective cities, about what makes them similar and what sets them apart from each other. Keep clicking to find out which city cooks up better grub, where you're most likely to catch d-boys at high school basketball games, and which city's mayor is more of a super villain.

Photo via IDreamOfPizza.com

Which city does food better?

Mikey: Chicago is a fat ass city, man. Fat. They eat and they cook and then they eat. Chicago got that one.

Where do you eat when you’re in Chicago?

Mikey: Man, for breakfast, you got cool little diners, Gold Nugget [various locations] type of joints, man. You know, with the waffles, eggs, and all that shit. For lunch, we've got cool little Puerto Rican spots and good Mexican food. It’s a real diverse city. Then dinner, you got all the, you know, the top franchised restaurants. The steakhouses and all of that crazy shit. You got the deep-dish pizza, Giordano’s [various locations], Gino’s East [various locations], Lou Malnati’s [various locations] and…

Do you have a favorite of those?

Mikey: Right now, I think my favorite would be Lou Malnati’s. I used to like Giordano’s a lot but I hate that there's a thin layer of uncooked dough that they put on the top. I hate that shit now, man. It's sauce, then the dough level, then cheese, and then crust. Yeah, I hate Giordano’s.

Chuck: Oh, there’s a dough level?

It’s uncooked?

Mikey: Yeah, the dough level. It’s soft and uncooked and shit. It's not harmful but I don’t like that shit. And Lou Malnati’s, they just go straight for their sauce, cheese, and then crust.

You just get cheese pizza?

Mikey: Nah, I get toppings man. Sausage or spinach, onions, peppers sometimes. They’re good with the toppings, too. I do the four cheeses sometimes, so its pretty much whatever you want.

Photo of Detroit

What about shopping—Chicago or Detroit?

Chuck: Shopping for clothes?

Mikey: I’ve never been shopping in Detroit.

Chuck: When it comes to culture, I like different types of people. Detroit, we got a lot of culture, but it’s definitely a more grassroots-type of culture. We got markets. There are areas where it’s kind of bugged out. It's hella artsy now that it's—you know, they kicked a fucking hole in Detroit. It's like the powers that be, they were on a mission to screw us over. And you know, we don’t have tourist attractions like Chicago does.

Chuck: People are spooked in Detroit. You can’t even get half the people to get out of their cars, so when it comes down to shopping—there’s hella shit to do in the suburbs, but Detroit is better known for its events and styles. Our styles are different, the music you listen to is different. The drivers in Michigan are way better, too.

Photo of Detroit's Motor City Industrial Park

The drivers are better in Detroit?

Chuck: Yeah, we got a really intense driver’s training program. We are the land of cars, so most people—[Laughs.] You get like two, three, four fucking drivers training courses. You start at 14 to 9 months. You do a written test, then you get your permit. Then you do your permit for like a year and a half, then you do another class. Then you get your license. Like in Chicago, it's like one or two and then they get their license.

So you stand a better chance of getting into a car accident in Chicago?

Mikey: Yeah. Way better drivers in Michigan. [Laughs.]

Chuck: Get your ass wacked in Chicago.

Mikey: And Michigan is just an interesting state in general because it’s coastal. Is there any other state with both sides that are surrounded by water?

Well, Florida would be because it’s a peninsula, too.

Mikey: Yeah, true.

Chuck: In Michigan we have the upper peninsula. Do you know anyone from the upper peninsula?

Not personally.

Mikey: There’s people in the upper peninsula that got their own currency. They literally are not connected to here.

They’re off the grid.

Mikey: There’s no flights going to the upper peninsula.

So if you’re ever trying to go off the grid, go to the upper peninsula in Michigan?

Chuck: Yo, if you want to get off the grid, go to the goddamn West. Upper Michigan in general is off the grid, you know what I’m saying? We’ve got a militia. We’re our own army.

Chuck: Detroit and Chicago get compared a lot, but it's starting to become incomparable because Chicago is commercial. Like, Chicago is trying to get the Olympics. The Olympics are never coming to Detroit. Not anytime soon. The athletes wouldn't show up.

Chuck: I’ve seen people been like, “Aw, you’re from Detroit?” Looking at me like I’m from Compton or some shit. I feel them, Detroit ain’t no joke, but at the same time, I think that we’re way cooler. We’re like the cool older brother that used to get in trouble, and Chicago is like the younger brother that got a good job. Clean cut. Like, the parents are really proud of him.

Mikey: Fresh cut lawn.

Chuck: Yo, our last mayor was a crook. Like, getting strippers whacked. He's in jail right now. Chicago’s mayor isn't in jail. And he’s probably like the biggest…

Mikey: He's a super crook but he’s way more political with his crooked acts.

Chuck: He wasn’t even crooked. He would just, like, privatize parking. That’s crook shit. That’s super villain shit. More than whacking strippers, man. That’s super villain shit right there.

Mikey: Yeah, privatizing parking. You don’t get a break ever. You got to pay for parking 24/7. Chicago and Detroit—once you’re from there, when you’re not an outsider comparing them, they're hella different.

Chuck: Because it's two different worlds. The shit that Chicago dudes do, Detroit niggas don’t even leave the house for. The club experience in Chicago is way different. Because, in Detroit, you need to be there with people you know. You need to know exactly how to leave. Shit could pop off. [In Detroit] if you’re going to a spot where it's good, where all the girls are at, where the music is cracking, you might be in a little bit of danger. In Chicago, you won’t be downtown, and if shit cracks off the cops will be there in no time. In Detroit you can have a shoot out in the club and the cops might show up like 15 minutes later. Everybody's dead already [Laughs.]

I was talking to Freddie Gibbs a couple of weeks ago and he was talking about Gary. He made Gary sound very similar to Detroit.

Chuck: Gary and Detroit are fucking brothers. But the thing about Chicago is, Chicago’s got a gang mentality. They work together. Ain’t no gangs in Detroit. It could never happen.

Chuck: I remember going to high school basketball games [in Detroit] and that shit was like Paid in Full. For real, just the dope boys are at the high school basketball games. In Chicago, the scouts and Nike people are at the high school basketball games. Chicago had a basketball game on ESPN. Ain’t been no Detroit teams on ESPN competing nationally and shit. And we got hoopers that come out but we haven’t had any in a minute. So I think if Detroit had the opportunities that Chicago had, things would be more equal.

What do you think needs to happen in Detroit?

Chuck: The Lions need to win a Super Bowl. I’m telling you. I’ve been telling everybody. The Lions win the Super Bowl, watch the city switch.

That’s what it takes. Something like that?

Chuck: I’m telling you. The way Michigan people watch football…

To get people behind the city?

Chuck: We’re such a football city and we’re so like blue-collar, so for out team. The Lions’ games aren’t sold out but they're definitely not empty. Even if we know we’re about to lose. But the Lions have never won the Super Bowl. They’ve had, like, two winning seasons since my dad was born, which was in 1957. They fuck up every year. [Points to right arm.] I got this tattoo when they went 0-16. This is where I’m from, shit. But if they ever won… You know, the Tigers went to the World Series in ’06, and that’s cool; people got up for it. The Pistons won the championship in ’04. Red Wings won in ’02 and I think they won again in ’06, and that’s cool. But if the Lions won, I swear the whole downtown would change. There’s no city where the football team wins and it’s shitty. Name a city that has a winning football squad and isn't a spot that you would go to. Like New Orleans. Wasn’t nobody going down to New Orleans until they won the Super Bowl. Now it's got a little bit of life. Winning gathers the people in a way that makes them feel like, "Damn, at least we’re not…" At least Sunday and Monday starts, and you can say the Lions won yesterday. I remember what that’s like. You know, your parents waking up after the past two years, the University of Michigan has been getting kicked in the ass, so it’s like Saturday we lose, Sunday we lose. Now you got to go back to work. Why are you happy? You ain’t got nothing to be happy about.

You’re pissed off and your week just started.

Chuck: Chicago could fuck up and still go to the NFC Championship. Barely win games and go to the NFC Championship. They went to the NFC Championship like four times this decade. They went to the Super Bowl once, so I think the Chicago vs. Detroit comparison is cool if you ain’t from Detroit. But if you are, you start thinking, "Man, we ain’t got what you got. I wish we had what y'all had." I wish our downtown was world class, but it looks like it did in 1995. There are no new buildings. There’s no new nothing.

Are there lots of things out of business? I’ve never been to Detroit.

Chuck: It’s desolate. It’s looking like a ghost town. There's no system set up there for small businesses to win, for anything local to win. It’s just greedy, man. It’s a city that don’t got shit and everybody wants to take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take.

What do the two cities have in common?

Chuck: The people are a lot alike. Because we’re all Midwest, surrounded by the Great Lakes. Whatever’s in that water, we’re all drinking it. We come from two different places but the same type of world; our backgrounds are the same. We’ve seen the same shit. We know the same types of poor people. We know the same types of people with money. Like, my dad is probably [Mikey's] dad 10 years ago. They’re the same people, going through the same stuff, because you’re only 300 miles away. But that 300 miles is a big ass difference when you look at the skyline in Chicago, and then you look at the skyline in Detroit. It's like the Detroit skyline could easily fit inside of the skyline of Chicago and not even get noticed.