In the hours since the news broke of Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly’s death, several key figures have spoken out. In addition to Kelly’s mother and So So Def Records’ joint statement, Kriss Kross’ deejay and pivotal Atlanta, Georgia music figure DJ Nabs spoke out. Revealing that he’d last spoken to Kelly four days ago, Nabs spoke to The Rickey Smiley Morning Show. “It’s hard to think about him in past tense, but Chris was my younger brother since I met him [when] he was 13 years old,” said the longtime Ludacris affiliate. “We had been there for each other—birthdays, holidays; he’s more than Kriss Kross to me, obviously.” Nabs added that he had functioned as Chris’ manager since the early 1990s, and the two had been in talks to book the group on the Tom Joyner Family Reunion concer stage.
Nabs, who released In The Lab With DJ Nabs on Sony Records back in 1998, also explained the possible silence from Kelly’s Kriss Kross partner, Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith. “I called Chris [Smith]. I texted him. Eventually, by the time it hit the news and everything, I knew [that] he probably knew [what happened]. But Chris not responding is really not out of the ordinary, ’cause Chris Smith really keeps to himself a lot. You probably won’t get an interview from him, I can say that. We’ll see. I haven’t talked to him.”
Asked to reflect on his friend and bandmate, Nabs said, “There was a partyin’ Chris that would go out and do his thing, and there was a Chris that was home, tryin’ to figure out what to do next.” Functional manager. “He was a real dude. We thought the same, even though we’re 10 years apart.”
The full audio interview is available at Rickey Smiley’s site.
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