Sir Michael Rocks Says The Cool Kids Are Not Broken Up & Talks Friendship With Mac Miller

Most hip-hop heads know who The Cool Kids are, but how many know that the group consists of rapper Sir Michael Rocks and producer Chuck Inglish? Not nearly enough is the argument Michael Rocks would give you. That’s why the two forces decided to step away from The Cool Kids brand and start doing individual work.

While Chuck has been knocking out hits — he produced the Stalley, Rick Ross and 2 Chainz smash “Party Heart” — Michael Rocks has been on his grind.

Late last year, he released the knockin’ Lap of Lux 1.5, and he’s currently working on a new EP called Banco, which should be something special.

Recently, the Chicago-native dropped off by the GlobalGrind offices in New York City. During our time we spoke about taking a break from the Cool Kids brand, the upcoming Banco EP, shootin’ craps with Mac Miller, how famous he actually is right now, and Chief Keef.

Check it out below! 

GlobalGrind: It was surprising to hear that you split with Chuck.

Sir Michael Rocks: Man, let me just clear the air. It’s not a split: we’re just doing solo stuff right now to further enhance the profiles. It got to a point where people would know The Cool Kids, but they wouldn’t even know the damn names of the dudes in the group.

That’s when I knew: people don’t know us individually. We got to expand and build our own profiles up because everybody know Tip and Phife. Everybody know Eric B. & Rakim. Everybody know Guru and Primo. We gotta expand.

You don’t want to be that group where all they know is “the group.” Because at the end of the day, we’re not “the group.” We’re Chuck Inglish and Sir Michael Rocks.

It’s no problem or no beef. Different writers try to put their own spin to it to get more views.

They’ve done that?

Yeah, dude. I just did an interview where this one dude titled the whole interview “The Death of The Cool Kids.” I’m like ‘what the f*ck.’ Then, if you read the interview it says nothing like that. He just titled it like that to get some more views. I was a little pissed at that.

What’s up with you and Curren$y?

Back when I was doing the Premier Politics series, last year, I was dropping mixtape after mixtape and he saw the work ethic. He saw the response I was getting from everybody that had it, but the word wasn’t really spreading out. It was a small group of people that knew about it and ‘f*cking’ with it. But, overall, it needed more buzz. It needed more word behind it. And he was like, ‘yo, man: I could open up a platform for you to put out some stuff so you can start establishing yourself some, opening the door to the thousands of fans I got.’ And I was like ‘hell yeah, let’s go.’

You have a new tape coming out soon, no?

It’s an EP. It’s called Banco. I’m gonna have it up for sale. It’s going to be the first thing I’ve really sold on the solo side.

Are you nervous about that?

Nah. I have five mixtapes that are like albums that were all free. This is the first one I’m ever going to sell, so I wanna ease people into buying stuff from me because I’ve been giving them so much free music for so long.

You have two routes you can go: the indie route or do what Rockie Fresh did and hop with a big name. Which route do you wanna take?

At this point I’m really ready to take it to the next level, man. I’ve done the indie thing for a long time. I know the ins and outs of it. I know how it works, and I think it has taught me so much that I can go major and know how to maneuver through it. Indie has taught me that no matter what, you and your team has to be going.

You talk about being bigger, how famous are you now?

I don’t know, man.

Well, if you go to the club how are the women treating you?

It depends on where we at. Some people might know me, some people might not. The only thing with me is: you take me anywhere; I just give off a charisma where girls are going to want to come over to me anyway.  They are going to be like ‘who is this? Let me see what’s up with this guy.’ ‘Cause I already don’t look like what you’re seeing all the time.

I’m in a funny situation as far as artists goes. I’ve done some big stuff, and then there’s some people who don’t know anything about me, so it’s pretty cool, man. I’m gonna really remember this spot in my career. This is going to be a really cool spot when I look back on it. Because this is the part of the journey where you’re not big, but you’re not still on the ground floor. This is the period people don’t really see that much. People don’t really document this part. When you see documentaries of rappers or whatever, they always show the part of being a kid in the hood and it was hard, it was rough. Then, OK, he did this song and — BOOM — he’s super famous. There’s never that in between climb up. The in-between where you’re known, but he ain’t got no damn money. It’s a big space between being nobody and being Hov or being Trinidad Jame$.

You recently hung out with that dude, Trinidad, right?

Yeah. Really nice dude. Real smart dude. Stylish guy. I think he’s definitely going to have a long career ahead of him, because he got more tracks. It ain’t just that one track. He got more songs.

Ya’ll cooked something up?

Yeah, I do have a song with me, him and Mac Miller. I think Mac taking it for his album.

Mac’s a good guy?

That’s one of the dopiest dudes I met in rap so far. We’re actually really good friends.

What’s an example of Mac Miller being funny?

Man, we were just in Vegas for his birthday. So this is his first time ever shooting craps, just turned 21, I’m teaching him how to roll the dice. He takes all of his chips, and I tell him: ‘you put all your chips on 12, and you don’t hit, money is going to go away, right?’ And he was like ‘yeah yeah, it’s cool.’ He put all of his money on 12, he rolled the dice and said ‘everyone say midnight!’ and the whole table was like ‘midnight!’ and bam. Hit it. Won like 6Gs. Then he did it two more times, bro, and then lost all of it.

You’re a guy known for his fashion: tell me a trend that you think is garbage?

I’m not really ready for the skirts, man. I don’t think I want to play the skirt game. I don’t think I’ll be ready for that one ever. I think that might need to fizzle out a little bit.

Also, man, I can’t wait for the leopard phase to end, too, man. When I was growing up leopard was always tacky; pimps and hookers used to wear a lot of leopard. It was never really classy to me. I like clean looks.

And finally, since you’re from the same city, we gotta ask you about Chief Keef.

He’s in jail right now, right?