Totally Krossed Out

Notorious LJT’s latest post about Chi-Ali got my thinking about bad rap bands from my youth and my mind kept going back to Kris Kross. I think most people remember Kris Kross from their hit Jump on their 1992 album, Totally Krossed Out. Thinking about Kris Kross reminded me of a funny story.

Some background on Kris Kross is needed for those who don’t remember. Kris Kross, like Chi-Ali, was a band composed of adolescent /teenager(s). In the case of Kris Kross the group was composed of two kids, apparently each named Chris. Each of the Chris’s took on a “street name” one taking the name “Daddy-Mac” and the other “Mack-Daddy.” Kris Kross was capitalizing on the emergence of hip-hop as popular music in the early 90’s. I think some record executives decide that it would be a profitable to sell adolescent rappers to the public when hip-hop was entering the main stream. I guess the gimmick of having two adolescent peep-squealers was not enough, and Kris Kross added an over the top gimmick… they wore all their clothes backwards!

Why did Kris Kross where their clothes backwards? Who knows? But at the height of Kris Kross fame, I was caught up in the hype. Being an impressionable 12 year old, I actually thought the idea of wearing your clothes backwards was cool! I thought about rocking the style of wearing all my clothes backwards to school.

Now, at that age what you wore to school was probably the largest determining factor in your place in the social hierarchy. Given the importance of the decision on what to wear to school, I didn’t want to make any faux pas. So, I decided a trial run of wearing my clothes backwards would be the best thing, in case there were any unforeseen errors. One day after school, I went to my room alone, and reserved my clothing. Now, at that age my jeans were not exactly baggy, nor were they super-tight. I guess you can say my jeans fit just right, slightly on the tight side for fashion in Teaneck, NJ at the time for my age bracket. I didn’t realize before my trial run that the knee area in my jeans had more give in the front and not in the back. When I attempted to walk after putting my clothes on backwards, my knees really didn’t bend that well.

You might think that the logistics of not being able to walk would be enough to thwart my plan of wearing backwards clothing to school; however, I was not deterred. I continued to try and walk (in an uncomfortable fashion) around my room. It wasn’t until I looked up in the mirror and saw myself did I realize how ridiculous I looked. Here I was, a 12 year old white boy from the suburbs, with semi-tight jeans on, a backwards shirt, almost falling from walking around my room.

I idea of wearing my clothes backwards died that day. Shortly after, my admiration for Kris Kross died as well.