Sometime toward the tail end of my elementary school career my younger brother and I dressed up as Kris Kross for Halloween. We wore Southern Connecticut State baseball jerseys (and our jeans) backwards and had stayed up late the night before so our mother could braid our hair into plats. I can't remember how my brother's day went, but people treated me like a star, happy enough, seemingly, to stand near the Edith E. Mackrille Magnet School version of one of their favorite rappers. Chris Kelly aka The Mac Daddy or the half of Kris Kross most easily identified as "the brown-skinned one," was found dead Wednesday afternoon in his Atlanta home at the age of 34. Upon finding out, rapper Ludacris tweeted that Kelly was, "One of my motivations as a kid to even get into the rap game." There's no telling how many other entertainers Ludacris speaks for as Kris Kross themselves weren't just an inspiration to rappers, they were literally the coolest kids in the world at the time. Though their stars would eventually fade, as all stars do, people of a certain age will always hold Kris Kross, and Chris Kelly, in the the highest esteem of their childhoods.
Totally Krossed Out, 1992
Da Bomb, 1993
Young, Rich & Dangerous, 1996
