Producer: .Jermaine Dupri
Track listing: Intro Interview/Jump/ Lil’ Boys in do Hood / Warm It Up / The Way of Rhyme / Party / We’re in do House / A Real Bad Dream / It’s a Shame / Can’t Stop the Bum Rush / You Can’t Get with This / I Missed the Bus / Outro / Party (Krossed Mix) / Jump (Extended Mix)
May 23, 1992
2 weeks (nonconsecutive)
The story of Kris Kross reads like a ’90s hip-hop version of actress Lana Turner, who, as legend has it, was discovered at the soda fountain at Schwab’s Drugstore in Hollywood. Chris Smith, 13, and Chris Kelly, 12, were hanging out at a shopping mall in their native Atlanta when they crossed paths with an 18-year-old producer named Jermaine Dupri, who was shopping with the female rap group Silk Tymes Leather. “Me and Chris were just hanging out at the mall and Jermaine asked us if we rapped and danced,” recalls Chris Smith.
From that day on, Dupri took the two young would-be rappers under his wing. According to Dupri, they had some natural talent. “They could keep up,” he says. “I was writing the lyrics. I put the lyrics on tape, and then they would go home and study them. They just had to get into the mode of becoming total hip-hoppers every day, so I just started taking them out with me clubbing.”
Kelly adopted the nickname “Mack Daddy,” while Smith opted for “Daddy Mack.” Apparently Dupri’s hip-hop training camp worked. It wasn’t long before a demo landed the duo a contract with Ruffhouse Records, distributed by the major label Columbia. Kris Kross recorded the majority of Totally Krossed Out in a week at Studio 4 in Philadelphia. Although the duo thought the album was complete, Dupri had other plans. “We needed one more song,” Dupri recalls. “I went home and came up with it real quick.” That song was a hip-hop jam titled “Jump,” which would launch Kris Kross’s career.
The song took the singles chart by storm, bounding from number 61 to the top in three short weeks, thanks in part to the duo’s national television debut on Fox-TV’s In Living Color.
Yet Kris Kross wasn’t just about a sound. The pint-sized rappers also grabbed headlines with their unusual fashion sense. The duo favored their clothes baggy and worn backwards.
According to Dupri, the duo tested the fashion fad in a mall. “People in the mall were flipping out,” he recalls. ‘Like, ‘They got their clothes on backwards.’ We were like, ‘Yeah, that’s it right there. We’ve got something to catch people’s eyes.'”
Despite their pop success and built-in teen appeal, Kris Kross didn’t want to be known as just another kiddie act. The duo attempted to emulate their favorite hardcore rappers, including Run-D.M.C. and N.W.A, on tracks such as “Lil’ Boys in da Hood.” Says Kelly, “Our first album was nowhere near pop. It just crossed over, and everybody said it was pop. But we didn’t go into the studio and say we wanted to make a pop record.”
More than two decades after their chart-topping triumph, Kelly was found dead in his Atlanta home of an apparent drug overdose. He was 34.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of May 23, 1992
1. Totally Krossed Out, Kris Kross
2. Adrenaline, Def Leppard
3. Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Red Hot Chili Peppers
4. Ropin’ The Wind, Garth Brooks
5. Classic Queen, Queen