Rapper scored hit with Jump in ’92

ATLANTA — Chris Kelly, half of the 1990s kid-rap duo Kris Kross, who made one of the decade’s most memorable songs with the frenetic Jump, died at an Atlanta hospital on Wednesday of an apparent drug overdose at his home, authorities said. He was 34.

“It appears it may have been a possible drug overdose,” said Cpl. Kay Lester, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County police.

According to Lester, police were called to Kelly’s home at around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. He was transported to the south campus of the Atlanta Medical Center.

Investigator Betty Honey of the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office said Kelly was pronounced dead at the hospital at around 5 p.m. Wednesday.

No official cause of death has been determined, pending an autopsy.

Kelly, known as “Mac Daddy,” and Chris Smith, known as “Daddy Mac,” were introduced to the music world in 1992 by music producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri after he discovered the pair in an Atlanta mall.

Their first, and by far most successful song, was 1992’s multiplatinum hit Jump. It would become a No. 1 smash in the United States and globally, and one of the most popular songs of that year.

Their success led to instant fame: They toured with Michael Jackson, appeared on TV shows, and even had their own video game.

The group was never able to match the tremendous success of their first song, though they had other hits like Warm It Up, and Tonite’s tha Night.

In 2009, after photos surfaced that showed him with bald spots on his head, there were rumours that he had cancer. But in an interview posted on YouTube by Straight from the A TV, he said he suffered from alopecia, a condition in which people lose their hair.

“My health is good, I just got alopecia, I don’t have cancer, not other sort of diseases,” he said.