It's a frigid Friday night in Chicago- both the day after Thanksgiving and the season's first snow- and a line of fans is wrapped around Sheridan Road, pensively waiting for the Vic Theater to open its doors. Tonight's concert is the second of two sold-out Chicago dates on M.I.A. 's North American tour. It's a particularly special night for tour openers and Chicago natives The Cool Kids, whose reputation in their city precedes them: "I hear they get the crowd body surfing," says one girl in line, her eyes wide with excitement.

The Cool Kids are home, but this isn't their usual hometown crowd. While the line is speckled with street wear t-shirted boys and spandex pantsed girls, this is mostly a 9-to-5 crowd, which means The Cool Kids aren't just “hipster rap" anymore, if they ever were.

"I didn't even know what the fuck a hipster was," says one half of the duo, rapper and producer Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersol. “I always did shit different, especially from other black kids. I came up the same way, but I didn't dress or listen to none of the same shit they listened to. To go to a party with other black kids there, white and Hispanic kids there, and a Police song comes on and everyone knows the words, I was like, ‘Oh, this is tailor made for me.' I didn't know it was a culture with a title on it.”

Though The Cool Kids can't be swept into tidy categories like "club rap" or "mash up," they've found a home comfortably with an audience shared by genre-melding acts like M.LA. and fellow Chicagoans Flosstradamus and Kid Sister. Like those artists, they are famed dually for getting parties buck wild and drawing a zealously fashionable fan base, inspired by the rappers' own unique sense of style. Ingersol and rapping partner Antwon "Mikey Rocks" Reed wear their influences on their sleeves. Hooks like “with a little bit of gold and a pager" (from the eponymous single) epitomize a personal fashion ethic that, like the line itself, is sampled from the era of N.W.A. Though they've ditched the gold rope chains of their early days ("Too many people started wearing them and they got played out," says Ingersol), they're still paying homage to the late '80s and early '90s in stone washed denim, vintage Chicago Bulls championship wear, and press photos that put a contemporary twist on scenes initially created by EPMD. Their production follows suit; Plodding, methodical tempos measured in skeletal synth and drum machine structures rarely nudge the dial upwards of 80 BPM but still hit heavy enough to bounce a crowd. And Ingersol's chatty party-and-bullshit lyricism balances Reed’s more conceptual storytelling style, which owes a debt to pioneers Masta Ace, Guru and KRS-One.

“I wasn’t trying hard to fit into some retro style of rapping,” says Reed, who turns 20 in December. “It just came natural. My parents were a bit younger than most people’s parents, so I didn’t grow up on Isley Brothers and James Brown and all that. I grew up on Slick Rick, Eric B. and Rakim, Nas and Biggie. I remember I used to like Slick Rick’s ‘Children Story’ because he was doing the kid voice and I was a little kid. And then I’m looking at the album cover and my mom has the same hate and shoes and that red jacket and raccoon hat-all that shit he had on, and I was like, ‘This dude looks like my mom!’”

“A lot of people always say to us, ‘How the fuck did ya’ll know what was going on back then?’” adds Ingersol, 23. “But that’s the same thing people say about sampling disco and soul and Earth Wind and Fire. That was what you were born on. Try having someone older than you tell you that’s not what you came up on. I’m a reflection-a spitting image- of the first couple songs that I heard.”

The Cool Kids' story is nostalgic, but it's also particularly modern. The pair met on MySpace in 2005, when Reed was only in his senior year of high school. "I didn't know he wasn't my age," defends Ingersol. "It wasn't like we were just texting and becoming pen pals. MySpace wasn’t crazy yet.” Reed was interested in purchasing one of Ingersol’s beats, and the two met up to talk business. Then Reed dropped a few verses, and it turned into a two-hour session with Reed rapping over a spread of Ingersol’s production. It was apparent the two shared a similar aesthetic, and their collaboration was born.

Meanwhile, another Chicago duo, DJs Josh “J2K” Young and Curt “Autobot” Cameruci- together, Flosstradamus-had launched a series of live performances with special guests at their already successful month DJ night, Get Out of the Hood. Ingersol had been working to push The Cool Kids music into local DJs’ hands. Young sent him a MySpace message complimenting their tracks-at that point both “Mikey Rocks” and “Gold and a Pager” were getting rotated regularly on the indie circuit-and Ingersol hit back requesting that Young book them for a show. “It was a hobby for us, but I knew if I wanted to become something serious, I had to be proactive,” says Ingersol. “[Reed] couldn’t go to the clubs yet so if someone called and was like, ‘I like your shit: if my Internet wasn't working, I'd get the fuck out of bed and go give it to them. Like the old school way, if someone wants your record, you go give it to them. I just think we took that route that you're supposed to take. I don't want anyone to think we just got it easy. 'Cause people say, 'How the luck did that happen so fast?' It didn't just happen last-it happened smart. There's a difference."

Previous Get Out of the Hood performers included Kid Sister (literal sister to Young of Flosstradamus), DJ A-Trak and GLC. They formed a makeshift community that would later congeal as A-Trak's label upstart, Fool's Gold. Though The Cool Kids declined a deal with Fool's Gold in favor of Chicago-based Chocolate industries, the alliance served them well. The pair has yet to release any mixtapes, singles, long or short players. Their music has largely been spread by way of tastemaking DJs, indie radio and a tireless schedule of live shows.

Now, poised to release their as-yet untitled EP in January on the label that broke Lady Sovereign before she signed to Def Jam, The Cool Kids are miraculously staying grounded. Surrounded by a gaggle of local pals in their dressing room backstage, they seem elated to be back home, almost unaware of the deafening reverberations shaking the room from M.l.A.'s set upstairs. The headliner is performing "$20,” off her latest album, with a line she could well have written for her new touring mates: "The trendsetters make things better." But Ingersol and Reed barely take notice. They're too busy catching up with old friends, who also happen to be their first-and probably biggest-fans.

"I think we're the bridge between the company we keep and the rest of the world," says Ingersol. "We're like that halfway point. You have options still. In hip-hop you don't get too many options. You get hood rap and you get positive rap. We're like ... 1 don't even know what to call us. The best description of why we love doing what we're doing is because of our audience. We don't ever feel pressured to do anything else."