Songoftheday 4/26/18 - Don't try to compare us to another bad little fad, I'm the Mac and I'm bad give you something that you never had...
from the album Totally Krossed Out (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (eight weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song of the day comes from the rap duo Kris Kross, two childhood friends who were discovered by up-and-coming mogul-to-be Jermaine Dupri in Atlanta in the early 1990s. They would be his first successful act, and Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly (then, 13) and Chris "Daddy Mack" Smith (then, 12) were basically pre-teens when they released their debut single "Jump". Written and produced by Dupri with a myriad of samples from James Brown, the Jackson Five, the Ohio Players, and others, it wasn't a novelty kiddie version of hip-hop, but a loud, boastful one, dissing other acts (like BBD's mentees Another Bad Creation) and a beat that dominated the urban clubs without so much as a smirk. Add the visuals (including their gimmick of wearing their clothes backwards for some reason), and you've got the biggest-selling rap song up to that point...
"Jump" became Kris Kross' first and biggest pop hit, spending two months atop Billboard's American Top-40 in April, May, and June of 1992. The song also spent a week at #2 on their R&B chart, and took five weeks at #1 on the magazine's Rap Singles chart. The remixes of the track helped it go to #13 on the Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Australia (three weeks), New Zealand (two weeks), Ireland, Finland and Switzerland (a week apiece), and reached the top ten in Germany (#2), the UK (#2), the Netherlands (#2), Denmark (#2), Sweden (#2), Norway (#2), Belgium (#3), France (#5), Italy (#5), and Austria (#7). In Canada, it just missed that mark at #11.
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Here's the Chris's appearing live on In Living Color to promote the single...
and again across the ocean at a BBC concert...
The duo rocked the Apollo as well...
But my favorite was when they were on Arsenio, and Joe Public ("Live and Learn") backed them up...
And finally, on, yes, the Oprah show...
Up tomorrow: Metal band come back from their crazy-successful album for a little pun-play.
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