Kidz Bop first launched in 2001 and over the past 25 years, it's amassed over nine billion streams and sold 24 million albums. There's also summer tours, a Kidz Bop Sirius XM station, Kidz Bop Live: The Concert Movie (in theaters now) and their 52nd album, out Friday, January 9, 2026. But despite being a massive cultural phenomenon, the inner workings of Kidz Bop have remained a mystery—until now.
In celebration of their 25th anniversary, we sat down with Michael Anderson, Senior Vice President of Music and Talent Development at Kidz Bop. Anderson has hand-picked every single Kidz Bop song for the last 52 albums and now, he's pulling back the curtain.
In this exclusive interview with Parade, Anderson reveals everything—from how Kidz Bop wasn't the original name to why there will never be a Kidz Bop version of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP." Plus, all about Kidz Bop Live: The Concert Movie, the massive star who will appear on KIDZ BOP 52 and the household names who got their start with Kidz Bop—including Zendaya.
Keep reading for a fascinating deep dive into the business of making pop music kid-friendly and why—even after 25 years—it's more important than ever.
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PARADE:Thanks for talking with me today! There’s really not much out there about the inner workings of Kidz Bop.
Michael Anderson: I'll be honest—I've kind of hidden it and just let the magic of Kidz Bop be the magic of the Kidz Bop. So this is the first time that I've ever openly discussed these things.
Before we start our deep dive, can you tell us about Kidz Bop Live: The Concert Movie, now in theaters?
We have concert tours that go all over the place. Last summer, we filmed one of our shows and from now until January 5, 2026, it's going to be a movie experience, where kids can just get out of their seats and dance and sing along. We had a premiere in New York and it was just so amazing to see the kids getting up and singing and having the most amazing time.
I really hope everybody can get out to see it. It’s perfect timing because this year we've got four days between New Year's and when people return to school and work. So if you need something to do with your kids, it’s perfect. And parents know these songs, so they can enjoy it, too. And the kids, they're so talented. It's really amazing to see.
I love that you guys get to be a part of their dreams. I interviewed them earlier and they said that this is a dream job for them.
Yeah. And you might have heard of Zendaya. She got her start in Kidz Bop music videos—and Olivia Holt, Becky G and Ross Lynch, too.
Another really cool thing is that Elijah Johnson was in our first group of Kidz Bop kids back in 2009. He was Michael Jackson in MJ: The Musical and then his understudy, Matt Martinez, was one of our Kidz Bop kids as well—and then he went on to play MJ. It's so cool and exciting for us to see how these kids take their experience with Kidz Bop and apply it to wherever they're going in life.
What is an average day at the helm of Kidz Bop like?
My day-to-day is a lot of running around and putting out fires—as anyone who works in any environment does! But really, the most important thing is just keeping my ear to the ground and paying attention to what songs are going to be hits in six months. This way, our kids can record them now and we can get our producers on them now, so that they can be released as singles when they’re #1 on the charts.
That must feel like a cat-and-mouse game!
Yes, but I've lived and breathed pop music for my entire life. I've always been obsessed with charts and how pop music is evolving. I really love when I hear an element in a song and I'm like, “Oh, that's where we're headed. That's where pop music is going.” I've always had an ear where—for whatever reason—I can just tell what a hit song was and know ahead of time that it's going to be a hit. Luckily, I have the job I have because I can put that to use!
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How did your Kidz Bop journey begin?
It's crazy. I went to school for meteorology and could not do math. I knew that I wanted to be in the music business, but it was 1995. You couldn't go to college and get a music degree back then—you just had to know somebody.
So I moved to New York and started working for the head florist at a department store. She happened to know the National Sales Manager at this little record label called Razor and Tie, started by two guys named Cliff Chenfeld and Craig Balsam. They released this music compilation called Disco Fever, and it immediately sold a million copies, which put them on the map. Five years after they started, I got a job in the mailroom and started telling them what they were doing wrong with their compilations and giving them ideas.
One of the first things I did was I put a compilation together called Monster Ballads, which sold over 3 million copies, ended up in a Simpsons episode and got referenced all over in pop culture. After that, they kind of turned that part of the business over to me. Basically, I got to come up with mixtapes for a living, and put compilations together and then write and produce the TV commercials for them.
At the time, the only way you could hear these songs was to own the entire album—but a lot of times you didn't need the entire album—you just wanted one song off of it. So we were doing the job for you and compiling all of the hits into one album, which was a very lucrative business. But then, LimeWire and Napster happened and you didn't need that anymore. Luckily, there was a conversation with the two owners of the company in my office, and we talked about this little thing called Kidz Bop.
Inside info: At first, it was called Kids Pop. I shot a commercial for it at a day camp in Rockland County, New York where all of the kids say “Kids Pop rocks!” But then, we found out that we probably can’t use Kids Pop.
The reason why it's called Kidz Bop is because in the commercial, I put “Kidz Bop Rocks” on the screen and everybody thought that's what the kids were saying. So that's where the name "Kidz Bop" came from!
Wow!And what’s the process of picking songs for each album?
Well, Kidz Bop 52 is coming out on January 9, 2026 and from the very beginning, I've picked out every song on every album. How a song becomes a Kidz Bop song is we go after the global pop hits, especially now because hits are so global.
There are songs you definitely can't touch. Like if the entire song is about drinking or sex, there's nothing I can do about that. But if I can make a couple of tweaks here and there, it becomes a Kidz Bop song.
Has anything changed over the years?
Yes, we've changed the way we record songs. Back in the day, I would submit all of the songs to my producer, Gary. He would collect them, get all the instrumentation ready and then every couple of months, we would get all of the kids in the studio and they would record 8 or 9 songs at once.
But then COVID happens and you can't get kids in the studio, so I hooked all the kids up with home studio recording equipment. Now, instead of it taking 2-3 months to get songs back, we can get songs back in a week-and-a-half, two weeks.
That’s wild! Are you guys diving into AI?
No, I think what’s powerful about Kidz Bop is that it's real kids singing—everyday kids just like you can be a Kidz Bop kid—and I think AI would take away from that.
The authenticity is what people really connect to—and seeing real kids singing in the music videos and you can sing along. Parents can feel good about the fact that these are the songs that they know, and they trust that the lyrics are going to be kid-friendly.
How do you change the lyrics from the original song to make it kid-friendly?
A lot of people think that we are completely rewriting songs, but there are a lot of clean versions already available. So we're not completely rewriting songs unless we're going to collaborate with the artist.
But there are situations where there's a curse word stuck in there—even in the clean version—or the word “damn” and I change it to “yeah.” And “f—ing” always becomes “dancing.” As soon as you change that to dancing, it changes the meaning of the song completely. It makes it—for the most part—kid-appropriate. I can always change “lover” to “other” and it works every time.
Did you ever completely rewrite a song?
We collaborated with Shaboozey and he let me rewrite the lyrics to “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” It’s called “A Bop Song” and it's coming out February 6th.
The lyrics go, “Okay, someone turn it up and dance along with KB / They know we and Shaboozey got a history.” We have Shaboozey’s name in there instead of Jack Daniel’s. “There's a party going down near Fifth Street / everybody in the place, sing it with me.”
That’s incredible. How long did it take you to change all that?
If this was 20 years ago, that would have taken a good 45 minutes, but I probably did it in 5 to 10 minutes. When that's your job—you just get to know what works. It's not just changing lyrics; it's understanding the flow of words, understanding the number of syllables that are in the words. Just because it's the same number of syllables doesn't mean it's going to work.
Did you have kids when you first got into Kidz Bop?
I was a kid myself when I first got into Kidz Bop! I was 26 or 27, so not that young, but young enough. My husband and I adopted a girl 13 years ago and she is awesome. And she's been watching every Kidz Bop video with me since she was born. When she was in fourth and fifth grade, she wore the Kidz Bop shirts all the time just to be repping the merch. Like, “You know how I got this? My dad.”
Are there any songs that are just impossible to make kid-friendly?
Things are either really easy or they're just not possible; it’s very clear for me. If a song is about partying all night and makes references that are adult, then there's not much I can do. Unless Shaboozey calls and then you work together!
When people see that we've covered a song, they expect that it's going to be a clean song. But every once in a while, there’s a song where it's just like, you can't touch that because no matter what I change it to, it's still going to be inappropriate for kids.
Would “WAP” be an example?
Yeah. People have accused me of putting out a Kidz Bop version because somebody else put out two versions: “Waffles and Pancakes” and “Wings and Pizza.” There's no way I could ever touch that song. Sorry, there will never be a Kidz Bop version of “WAP.”
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Do you enjoy seeing people Kidz Bop-ify other songs?.
It depends! I think the problem I have is the people who don't understand how we actually change lyrics. They think we literally change every lyric to like, “Drinking juice boxes right in the school bus.” That is not what we do—we stay as true to the song as we can, within the spirit of Kidz Bop and kids and dancing and fun.
What have been some of the artists’ reactions to having their songs recorded by Kidz Bop?
We're celebrating our 25th anniversary. What's really incredible is that the artists who are releasing songs now grew up with Kidz Bop, and they know exactly what it is. Our kids actually just met with Kehlani, when they were at Sirius. Kehlani saw them and said, “I wanted to be you guys when I was little.”
We find a lot of that with artists now. A few months ago, Alex Warren found out that we covered “Ordinary.” He posted—just like incredulous —that we covered his song and Kidz Bopified him. He had finally made it!
@alexwarrenI didn’t think my lyrics were that naughty…
♬ Ordinary - KIDZ BOP KidsLil Nas Xseems to post videos of him dancing in front of our music videos. It’s a rite of passage that they've gotten to the point where their song is big enough. They've crossed the threshold that now Kidz Bop is covering them—and that's really cool.
Do you have a particular favorite that you're like, I'm really proud that I got this song to work?
There’s thousands and thousands of songs. Back in the late ’80s, there was Motley Crue and they had a ballad called “Home Sweet Home” and it just has this iconic piano beginning. We actually did a Kidz Bop version of that song, and it might have brought a little bit of a tear to my eye. I was 13 when that song was out and I'm sure it's my own emotional stuff, but hearing kids sing it, and thinking about the future and the world and everything, it just did something.
And then—on the other hand—you've got all these kids growing up for the last 25 years who reach a point where they're like, “Oh, I didn't realize that was the lyrics of the song.” They know the Kidz Bop lyrics first, so they're very shocked when they get older and realize what the actual version is!
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What would be a dream collaboration for you?
A dream collab would beTaylor Swift, of course, and the Kidz Bop Kids Sessions. She's working with the kids, they sing songs together—that would be amazing.
When you're ready to pass the baton, how would someone get your position?
I honestly have no idea. I think back to my 13-year-old self growing up in upstate New York, knowing I had to get out to a bigger world and not knowing how to do it. I got lost in pop music and that is how I kind of had access to a bigger world out there. And that's what I'm trying to bring through Kidz Bop. For kids out there, it's real kids just like them. And it's really important that they feel like it’s attainable; that this is something they can do.
Can you tease what songs are on the new album coming on Jan. 9?
Yes, right on the heels of this movie, we've got our brand new album, KIDZ BOP 52. The biggest song on this album is our version of “Golden.” It's an incredibly hard song to sing and our kids nailed it.
Do you use other people when coming up with some of these lyrics now?
For the most part, no. But as I've gotten older and maybe a little more disconnected, I have to be a little more cautious. We did a cover of “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5, and there's a lyric in there that says “Roll that backwood, babe.” I thought it was about four wheeling in the woods, but I wasn't sure. So I checked and some of the younger people in the office corrected me! For the most part, I'm pretty aware, but every once in a while, I have to check.
Finally, congratulations on the 25th anniversary of Kidz Bop! What’s something you’ve seen change over the years?
I think the difference is that inappropriate songs are more mainstream now because kids are exposed to them through social media. So now, it's even more important for there to be a safe place for parents to go be with Kidz Bop—and to know that they can trust it. You can put the Kidz Bop YouTube videos on and you know it's a safe place where they're going to have a great time.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kidz Bop Live: The Concert Movieis playing in theaters nationwide through Jan. 5 and KIDZ BOP 52—featuring "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters and a kid-friendly version of Shaboozey's "A Bar Song"—drops on Friday, Jan. 9. Stay tuned for release dates on their 2026 summer tour.
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