I teach teenagers how to do figure drawings twice a week - this takes place in LA, La Crescenta, Fullerton, and Cerritos. Pretty much covers LA right? Well we end up talking about music every now and then and it still amazes me the reactions I get from the kids. I’m 27 but apparently that’s ancient to some - when one of my students found that I like the Arctic Monkeys, he was like, “Woah! I didn’t know people your age liked music like that!” (so what do people my age like? “I don’t know, 2Pac?”) This of course led me to probe about “old music”. When I mentioned Kriss Kross (along with Cross Colours) the whole class went blank. “You guys have never heard of Kriss Kross?” I was pretty shocked. Guess what? They also never heard of New Kids on the Block!!! (these old school acts are too awesome to mention w/out showcasing some video!)

It was interesting though because one of my students (who is in 9th grade) loves the Red Hot Chili Peppers… and they started before New Kids on the Block… makes you realize that there’s a whole other level of fame - When you first saw this: did you think they would still be as popular 17 years later? So what do the kids like? Well my La Crescenta kids LOVE Metro Station Funny enough, when I first heard the music playing in class I was like, “who is this? Kind of sounds like a contemporary Duran Duran”. I looked around and all the kids just gave me a blank stare - “Duran who?”