Back in 2004 when we were working on “Mike on the Fatman” and after Musiq Soulchild dropped the “Soulstar” album with the “forthenight” song I kept telling Chum I wanted to do a disco track. Now in the Cool-Aide era I finally pulled the right record off the wall and I got my disco track.

I had just gotten back from seeing that girl from Marked by Melody and I was in a real somber mood but I sat down with the track and worked out what was going on in my head. I started with “Who really knows what the future holds?” and ended up with an “Everything’s gonna be alright” song.

At this point we had started to realize what our “sound” was. And all our friends were saying how it could be a hit.

I envisioned a video for this with a prologue where me and my love interest have a fight and she throws me out the house and then as the song starts I wake up in a parking lot in my car. The song starts I drive back to Philly go to my uncle’s house cut my hair (I had dreads until 3 months ago if you’re new to me) and this is my moment of clarity and I show up at my party which is at a skating rink where everyone is waiting for me not sure if I was gonna show up cuz they knew what had happened but I show up all brand new and we’re all smiling and roller skating and Chum is DJing. At the end of the song she shows up in the doorway of the skating rink and we hug. The end.

Other than selecting the record and suggesting that he add something at the end I didn’t have much input on this track.

The instrument on the bridge is Chum making sounds with his mouth. He was very proud of that.

If this is any indication it woulda been a hit.

This was a track Chum made while I fell asleep on the couch and was just like hey use this.
I’ve been called all types of synonyms for arrogant and asshole and the hook said “I’m just being being myyyyyself I’m just being being me – nobody but me.” So I just took the time out to explain why I am the way I am and that everyone else should be too.
My parents playfully argue about who gets more love because of the order in which their names appear in the first verse. I love those guys — well mostly just my mom.
I wanted Chum to do some drum tricks on the list in the third verse. I thought that really woulda set that part off. He didn’t do it. He also was waiting on someone to come do a bassline for this and after a while I think he did finally lay one but I don’t have that version.

I’m not really the type of person to front about a song I made and who I wrote it for. So I’m not gonna be like “this is for all the girls I ever broke up with” or some bullshit like that. When I wrote this I was very much in love with this person and as such I was writing around how I truly felt about the situation and taking accountability for things that were truly just not things I’d created — at least not on my own.

So this song was me working through those issues. We’d made another song that’s similar to this one the following night. It was called “Piece by Piece” I didn’t want to use it though because listening to it made my stomach hurt. Yeah I can’t really explain it. Yeah I don’t know either. I’d wondered if it was something alchemical.

I think Chum made this from a sample he’d already had lined up. He was aware that Black Panther had already used it but he was vocal about not caring about that and that he could make a better beat. That’s generally his stance on samples other people have used that’s why a lot of the time you’ll hear a track of his and think to yourself “this sounds familiar…I just can’t quite place it.” My only real input on the beat was that he extend the hook to include that extra part. He had this cat Ed come in and play live bass on it and Ed also sings the “Marked by Melody” at the end of the hook because when I did it it sounded like shit HAHA!.

MiC K!NG & Chum WERE Cool-Aide

Chum and I no longer work together but we did an amazing album and it’s my birthday so I’m giving it to you for free. Well not totally. It’s gonna cost you a tweet or facebook post. Get your copy of MiC K!NG & Chum WERE Cool-Aide now.

These were exciting times, I’d went up to Chum’s and played him some of the stuff I’d been working on for the Robots with Hearts project and I’d say like a year before I’d described the “Cool-Aide” idea to him. It was a skeleton vision where I imagined us making music people could relate to more. I’d always been big on other genres like Disco, Soul, etc and I wanted to incorporate those. I wanted to write in such a way that I split the difference between being overly dense and being relatable. I wanted to have fun but not have to sacrifice my ability to rap too much. I also wanted to sing a little bit and I wanted to have Blue Raspberry in the group. I wanted to do a record about being cool through adversity. Literal “Cool” “Aid” if you will. We’d kicked around the ideas for awhile but never really acted on it.

At some point in there I had written that “Third Renaissance” article, Chum started spinning hipster music, and I started working on a lot of different stuff like Robots with Hearts and “The Season of Our Discontent” records I was doing with Blastah Beatz.

Finally Chum and I decided we were gonna make a follow up to “Mike and the Fatman.” The plan was to make some really dark music. He sent me a couple beats, one of which Dos-Noun and I wrote a track to but then I went up to his crib and I played him some Robots with Hearts shit and he played me some beats and I think we laid a rough draft of what ultimately became “Kind of a Woman” — A song I was initially kinda shaky on because I thought it was way too simple.

That night I left with that song and a beat cd of all types of stuff from Chum’s stash. I’d listen to the tracks on repeat with an excitement to create that I hadn’t had in years! Instead of laboring over verses at home I kept ideas floating in my head and just let the beat knock in my wheel on the way to the studio then rush to jot it all down when I get there.

We started from beat cd and then moved to me picking random records off the wall and going through samples and he put tracks together with my input.

For the first time in our collective creative career we were on the same page and we were making some really dope music.

We had big plans. Or at least I had big plans. I mapped out a dope marketing plan and I wanted to get a band. I wanted to perform the album with an orchestra and put out a DVD of it. I wanted to hire dope flavor of the month musicians for remixes. I had all types of ideas I wanted to bring to life to really make the record stand out.

Obviously being that you’re about to download this for free, none of that is ever happening with this album.

To be continued….

-MK

MiC K!NG x Chum x Slug of Atmosphere

Well hello!

My name is MiC K!NG (aka iCON the Mic King). I’m from the group called Cool-Aide. That is the producer Chum and myself.  It is a pleasure meeting you!

No doubt you found your way here because you are a fan of Atmosphere searching for new music.  Well guess what!

We’re fans of Atmosphere as well! And the big homey Slug was nice enough to appear on our debut release “Flavor Ade” on a song called “Snake Oil.” So for making the effort to come visit us we want to share that song with you!

You guys know the routine. Right-click/Save As…

Download

If you enjoy the song please feel free to check out the rest of Flavor ade on iTunes.

Since you’re here you might as well look around. We have some videos of us acting silly. We have interviews and we even have an exclusive remix we did of Chromeo’s latest “Night by Night.”

Thanks for dropping by and we hope to catch you at a party in your town!

-MK

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Merry Christmas from Cool-Aide!

There’s two things I definitely love. Christmas and Chromeo.

Chum and I (mostly Chum) whipped up a remix of the new Chromeo hit “Night by Night” and it’s Christmas so it’s our gift to you!

You can download it here

Merry Christmas y’all!

-MiC K!NG