RIP Chris Kelly

If you're not at least vaguely familiar with who Kris Kross were, you must've been in diapers during the early 90's. Many of us who had just gotten out of ours around that time found a lot of entertainment value, if not outright inspiration from the two Chrises (Chris Kelly and Chris Smith), rappers roughly the same age as us who had a few hit records and some memorable collaborations with other popular artists from that era such as Da Brat and Supercat. Personally, I never really emulated the backwards clothes style they had, seeing it for the fad it was, but I mimicked everything else, from the braids to the flow to the attitude. And as they trudged along through puberty and young adulthood, I remained as much a fan as I could for a pre-internet group with little mainstream exposure, copping all their albums over time.

It's A Shame their last two albums following their debut saw so little promotion because IMO they were actually better. Their last album especially, 1996's Young, Rich & Dangerous was largely self-produced, and the resulting effort is neither the gimmicky Totally Krossed Out or the forced bravado of Da Bomb, but a smooth, mature reflection on their lives and careers up to that point.

The last time Kris Kross were seen publicly was for a one-off reunion for the So-So Def 20th Anniversary show, at which Kelly looked and sounded fine. It's hard to believe he was in bad health or heavy into the cocaine and heroin a friend claims he had been using around the time he died.