Kris Kross - Totally Krossed Out


Welcome to Friday (though it's probably almost over by the time you're reading this)! Today we ask the ultra important question "was the 1992 Kriss Kross debut album Totally Krossed Out as good as i remember?" The answer is yes, but first we have to nail down what it actually is. 

Totally Krossed Out is a concept project created by Jermaine Dupri and Joe "The Butcher" Nicolo, performed by 2 just barely teenage rappers named Chris who wear their clothes backward. That's not necessarily good or bad, i merely point it out so that we all understand that these Chrises didn't set up an appointment under the names Mac Daddy and Daddy Mac to pitch their demos with their football jerseys on backward. At the same time though, this also isn't a Millie Vanillie type C&C Factory switcheroo either. This is a bona fide collaborative concept that rightfully garnered all the success it deserved because everyone actually understood the assignment: 2 teenage rappers making an album about what it's like to be two totally regular kids in the 'hood. They don't want to be gang bangers selling drugs on the street, they just want to party with the girls and not miss the bus tomorrow morning. That is what we in the industry like to call believable, an album about what life could actually look like for a couple smart and articulate tweenagers. 

Sadly, Chris Kelly did develop a serious drug problem that killed him in 2013, and their later albums did not reach nearly the same level of success as their first. I know i'm a cynical old bastard, but that's not really surprising, is it? I don't mean the drug addiction, i mean the hitting it so far out of the park the first at bat that there's nothing further that needs to be said or accomplished. 

Now, the album isn't perfect because it contains unnecessary extended remixes that nobody actually wants to listen to while listening to the album as a whole, but aside from that kind of standard label interference i really don't see how anybody could improve upon the concept. They start out with a jibe at the industry about how they're real rappers rather than just another ABC clone, proceed through short but completely well-crafted hip-hop songs about their lives, and end with a tongue in cheek satire of the mainstream cynicism toward 12-year-olds in ill-fitting backwards clothes being a ridiculous fad that will hopefully die quickly. 

What, pray tell, could there possibly be to not like? Nothing, it's fabulous. Go listen to it on youtube right now:

Totally Krossed Out 

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