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For what I do, I preserve memories for people.
When I started shooting, I only was shooting what I knew.
Low-riders, the hood, my friends.
I took pictures, and people never saw them.
The guys were like, "Hey, homie,
let me see the pictures from the tour."
And I was like, "Ah, I didn't get that shit
developed yet," and they're like, "Why not?"
And I was like, "I'm busy. You know, I got shit to do."
This right here
is my-- my negatives.
From my whole life.
Somewhere in here, there is...
Cypress Hill.
I've known the group since day one.
I met them on the block in 1989.
I knew Muggs before from the clubs.
I mean, I was taking photos and filming as much as I could.
Comin' out the slums, it's the hoodlums
I'm pullin' my gat out on all you bums
So bring it on when you wanna come fight this
Outlaw, kickin' like Billy Ray Cypress Hill...
Muggs, B-Real, and Senen
were everything that hip-hop needed to be.
There's no other Cypress Hill.
They're literally one of one.
Especially from L.A., there was nothing like that.
What up, B-Real? All right.
Sen Dog!
That marriage between B-Real and Sen Dog's voice
is just amazing.
They sound like the crazy Mexicans
that were on angel dust, but it's dope.
We ain't goin' out like that, we ain't goin' out like that
We ain't goin' out!
The music, the cultural pedigree,
everything about them was just so perfect.
...out like that, we ain't goin' out--
That's not even mentioning that they were the first ones
that were literally crusading
about the legalization of marijuana
in a time when it seemed
like they were just a bunch of stoners bugging.
Do you wanna get high
So high
I want to get high
So high...
B-Real was the first one ever
to light a joint up on stage, that I seen.
The resiliency that Cypress has,
B-Real as a vocalist, Sen Dog as a vocalist,
they seem to get stronger, like super cyborgs of weed.
-Thanks to Dr. Greenthumb. -Mm-hmm.
Every nigga out there wanna be down with the crew
Some ain't got enough heart, let me ask you this...
No, they're a phenomenon, to be honest.
Not the music only, it's the artistry,
the album covers, the imagery they use.
It's crazy that they're the biggest-selling
Latin hip-hop group of all time.
When I got your back, you know I got your back
Each and every time, throw your set...
They were really ahead of their time
in ways that people need to think about.
And they were just being themselves.
You had a camera with you literally 24/7.
Nobody had a photographer, videographer,
social media person.
There wasn't even none of that shit back then.
I became that guy.
I was taking photos and video of them every day.
Here is something
You can't understand...
Imagine if I didn't keep all this?
We'd be fucked.
To the one on the flamboyant tip
I'll just toss that ham in the frying pan
Like spam, get done when I come and slam
Damn, I feel like the Son of Sam
Don't make me wreck shit, hectic
Next, get the chair got me going like General Electric
"Aaaant", the lights are blinking, I'm thinking
It's all over when I go out drinking
Ohh, making my mind slow
That's why I don't fuck with the big 4-O
Bro, I got to maintain
'Cause a nigga like me is going insane
Insane in the membrane
Insane in the brain
Insane in the membrane
Insane in the brain
Insane in the membrane
Crazy insane, got no brain
Insane in the membrane
Insane in the brain
Because I'm loco
Insane in the brain
Because I'm loco
Insane in the brain
Because I'm loco
Insane in the brain
--Oh, I think...
-That's right. -...we're fucking
crazy.
These are some of the earlier photos
I took of the band.
I never thought we'd be making history.
And to think it all started in L.A.
That's what's crazy to me.
We came up with the name Cypress Hill
because of our love and our affection
for that block that we grew up on.
We were street kids, but we always had this thing
where we wanted to take our block, Cypress Avenue,
we wanted to take it worldwide.
Well, right now we're on 8672 Cypress Avenue
in South Gate, Cali.
And this is where it all started at.
My mom put that fucking palm tree in.
When we moved out of here, it was like this tall.
Yeah.
And then they became some--
I guess you can't cut trees down in this fucking city,
and the fucking thing, look how big it is, dude.
My family comes from a place
called Pinar del Rio, Cuba.
"Cuba," for those that don't understand me.
And my dad had done, you know, time in the joint there,
in the penitentiary for, you know, pro-human beliefs.
He didn't want that life for his kids,
so he moved us out here to California.
When we first moved in, it was very, like, you know,
everybody to themselves, and they said "hi"
and this and that, but no one really intermingled
and whatnot, you know what I mean?
And then I moved in, and eventually
I turned this whole place around
and I made it a party block.
We partied down here, you know.
-Right here? -Right here, man.
And we got raided by the police.
Because they always thought we were selling stuff.
We were just using stuff.
You know? We were getting stoned
to the bone, like for real, dog.
You know, and they'd come and try to, like,
assault raids and run through the house.
And they could never find nothing, you know,
and they were like, "Where do the guys keep their dope at?"
We're like, we smoked it!
I was walking down the street one day over there
and I seen B-Real and Gregor were walking up the street
coming over here.
And I was like, aw, man, if these guys
say anything to me, I'm just gonna go over there
and beat 'em down both, you know?
B-Real yells at me, he goes, "Hey, Sen Dog!"
And I go, "What?"
He goes, "You wanna smoke this joint?"
I'm like, okay.
So, I went over there, and then it was--
we were just friendly from that point on, like...
All right, hey, B, tell us about your mom.
Son of a bitch.
Okay, got it.
Um, yeah, so my mother, she's originally from Cuba,
from Havana.
My father was from Mexico.
And I met Sen through his brother Mellow.
Sen Dog was like 18, 19, I'm like 15, 16.
This was before any of us were rapping, you know.
'Cause back then we were listening to groups
like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd,
The Doors, and all that stuff.
The first time I heard hip-hop
was on KDAY.
50,000 watts!
H-h-h-hip. AM Stereo KDAY,
Santa Monica, Los Angeles.
KDAY, you know, was an AM station
that we all used to listen to.
That's how we got it, through the mix show,
the KDAY Mix Masters
with Julio G, who played a big part
in putting Cypress Hill together.
What I remember back then,
that was the only place you could ever hear hip-hop.
-Mm-hmm. -You couldn't see it yet.
That's true, that's true.
Yeah, AM radio at that time
had, like, those little breakout stations.
The music wasn't so big yet,
but a lot of people just wanted hip-hop.
You'd have to find it, but it was there, you know,
and people would listen to it.
So, I'ma go back
and give you a story about Cypress Hill.
So, I met Muggs
probably, like, right out of high school,
or about to graduate high school.
I said, "Hey, Muggs, you should come to the block,
'cause you smoke a little weed, they smoke weed.
They cool dudes, man, you should just come kick it."
And Muggs had just bought some turntables and a mixer.
And I'm like, "Oh, man. Technic 1200s you got?"
"Yeah," 'cause you know, nobody really had that.
It was hard to get that back then.
You know, if you had those,
it was a big deal, it was expensive.
I go to his house, I said, damn, this dude is serious,
'cause all he got is the records, his dresser,
turntables, and his bed right here,
and like a poster, that was it.
And then Muggs started to come kick it
'cause he was about hip-hop.
I was born in Queens, New York.
I came from a place where it was ethnically diverse.
You know, Greek, Jewish, Dominican, Puerto Rican,
Black, Italian.
Then when I moved to Los Angeles,
where I moved it was pretty much 99% Mexican.
It was a culture shock, man.
There was just bars, funeral home,
liquor store, church, on repeat, you know what I mean?
So, I started tagging on the walls, breakdancing.
And then I seen Jam Master Jay.
And I was like, oh, I wanna do that.
Early '87, I met 7A3.
My name's Larry Muggerud, M-u-g-g-e-r-u-d.
But also known as the mighty Italiano...
-Grand Mixer Muggs. -You know it.
They had a record called "7A3 Will Rock You"
and they was down with the Syndicate with Ice-T.
7A3 had DJ Muggs
as the DJ.
Some Italian kid from-- he lived outside of L.A.,
like in another area.
Never talked.
But he was dope, he had this vibe about him.
And then, you guys started doing backyard parties?
Or how did...?
We just pulled up into backyard parties
and just get on the mics.
Sometimes they wouldn't let us on the mic,
sometimes they would.
Sometimes we'd bring our own mic.
-And just wreck it. -And just fucking plug it in,
go, take it with us,
so if anybody tried to get on after us,
you wasn't get-- you better have brought your own shit.
Prior to you guys' hip-hop careers taking off,
what were you guys up to?
Basically, I was, you know,
involved with a lot of negative stuff,
you know, gangster lifestyle and stuff like that.
Do you miss it?
Gangbanging? Nah.
I mean, you know, when I was a kid
and didn't know better, it was fun, but...
-Mm-hmm. -Now that I know better,
and what I was doing, you know, I just realized
it was a learning experience.
I wouldn't change it because then I wouldn't be
-who I am, you know? -Yeah.
In the late '80s, L.A. was a war zone.
It was basically impossible to live in the hood
and not be gang-affiliated.
Growing up here in South Gate,
even if you didn't pick a side, you might catch a beatdown.
Another world, man.
This shit was dangerous every night.
Gangbanging, gunshots, scraps.
And see, the problem with L.A. is everybody got a gun,
and it can escalate real quick.
I'm a chickenhawk, huntin' for a chicken
Get paranoid when you hear my Glock clickin'
Speakin' to the punk that's tweakin'
With the bitch-ass styles I hit you like Deacon
We were rapping for fun as a hobby in the beginning,
and then I sort of strayed away from it all
while the other guys kept moving forward with it.
I know they were worried about me
because they knew who I was running with.
I was running with some real motherfuckers, you know,
and at any moment, I, you know, could have been locked up
or popped, you know what I mean?
And I did get popped, I got shot.
It was, you know, typical hangout night
with the homies, but we went to another hood.
Car pulls up, four dudes in it.
Blue hats, we're all wearing red.
The gang signs and the "fuck yous"
and the this-and-that starts happening,
and then we see the rifle coming out.
They shot at me four times,
and I could hear three of 'em right in back of me,
like they're-- they're chasing me.
And I guess on the last one, maybe he led me a little bit.
-It hit into my back.
The bullet, which was a .22 hollow-point,
had come in, bursted into three pieces,
one piece putting a hole in my lung.
When you're living that life, that's what you expect.
You accept that, you embrace it.
It was a natural thing for me until it wasn't,
and the music changed my mind about what I was gonna be doing.
Sen Dog and DJ Muggs, they came and asked me,
"Hey, you know, why don't you come
and write some songs?"
You know, I thought that would be cool.
You know, I didn't know if it would work out or not.
But maybe there's another direction I could go
as opposed to jail or the grave.
It was everything, because I started having fun
writing these songs again and thinking, like, I can do it.
I could actually write a song.
Fuck writing a rap, I can write a song.
You're doing some stuff for your own right now too.
Yeah, with-- with me and my boy Sen Stiff
and Muggs.
-Ho! -What's happening?
What's up, I'm Sen Stiff,
and I don't carry no gats 'cause I'm known
to drop niggas like flies.
Muggs took that chance and was like,
"I believe in you two, you know what I mean?
Like, I think I could do something with you guys,
but it's gonna take a couple years,
and you guys gotta quit your jobs
and move to my apartment."
So, that's what we did.
Hey, Fernando?
What was that shit I did at Kodak?
What do they call it?
-It was a stacker. -A stacker.
-Yeah. -And I worked
in a conveyor line with, you know,
side pallets here and pallets upstairs,
as they went into the trucks, and that's what I did.
And I was good at it too.
Tell 'em how you stole my job.
'Cause you were lazy, is that why?
That had something to do with it.
We was making our demos,
but they was, like, on the cassette,
just rapping on somebody else's beats.
Whatever 12-inch there was, I'd flip 'em,
and they rap on it.
Sen had swag.
He could rap better than B at the time,
but his writing was basic.
B-Real could write different than everybody.
Like, B-Real could always write, yo,
from the first day, he could just--
was a good writer.
For two, three years, that's all we did.
All we did, every day, all day, every day, you know,
with Muggs at the helm giving us instructions
on how he wanted us to sound, or our flows and whatnot.
It wasn't just like all of a sudden
we just became this band.
Like, it's like we had to go hungry,
we had to go broke.
And I think in that apartment
is where we fine-sharpened our tools
formulating what would be a Cypress Hill jam.
So, he kinda like masterminded the whole thing
and made it to where we could present it
as, you know, as a group.
Check this one out, son.
This is a fucking demo we did that...
one of our first demo tapes, check this one out.
This is when I had the little beat-up BMW?
-The brown one? -No, that little--
that little primer one.
Beaming, I energize, stuck on Earth, I tranquilize
B-Real thinks it's def but I say it's not
B-Real with the appeal
It's the dope beats that I deal
And after I destroy you, I annoy you
And I feel if you are tall, I will be bigger
Have a gun, don't pull the trigger
If you're pulling out to take my life
I'll serve you to deliver
Nothing's simple, this is strange
How it's lyrically arranged at your disposal
My proposal as it's claimed for the race
So get it right, don't get it wrong
How much further or along
Will your basic understanding...
-Wow. -And your voice back then
was-- was so, wow.
Yeah, no, it was no...
It was before any of the, you know, the nasal thing
you developed and all that thing.
I had the flow, just the voice wasn't cutting.
But I couldn't sound like that now if I tried.
I was happy I found your vocals.
-You got any more old-school? -Oh, you know I do, baby.
I was just waiting for the word.
This is the original "Real Estate."
But the other version's more-- got more energy,
like it's way more hype, but this is-- this one's funky.
Yo, it's time to hurt her, sorta like murder
A duck with the public's favorite rhyme order
I ain't no waiter or hater of a spectator
Seekin' to find the toys, with no flavor
See I'm talkin' about those whose vocals ain't coming off
A skill to kill at will...
That's why I said, that's the first song we did
that sounds like a record.
That's the demo, it sounds like a fucking--
like, sounds like a hit, right?
-Yeah. -Hard.
He needs a G when you listen to the vocal
I'm not a loco but I'm lookin' just 'til punk go, ohh
Now you can't see I'm real great?
Check out the story to the glory of the real estate
Look.
The Real is the B-est, sport and you can see this...
That was the first song I flipped my voice on.
All the demos previous to that one
I was using that voice you heard before.
And that's when Sen Dog comes up with the beta voice
that compliments that high-pitch style.
That's when we started developing a different sound
to go along with the type of music
that Muggs was giving us.
Yeah, that was the entry into who we were eventually gonna,
you know, evolve into right there.
That was the first one, that was the key.
That's like, what, three years of work,
like working, you know what I mean?
My beats was wack for the first year.
Everything was-- I thought it was dope
when I-- I was like, shit, we was just learning,
we was just figuring it all out together.
But then one day, you know what I mean,
all that work, you just lock in, like...
Oo-wee!
The studio back then, I remember it
being like unorthodox, kinda the way we did things.
Muggs ran everything through an SP-12,
and then he had a ghetto blaster in the room,
and we got all the sound out from there.
We kept recording.
Then we had this song we did one day
called "Trigger Happy."
B-Real said one line in the song that said,
"Here is something you can't understand,
how I could just kill a man," one time.
And I was like, yo, stop! That's the fucking hook.
Here is something you can't understand
How I could just kill a man
Bro, I couldn't stop playing that shit all fucking day.
Then, we did "Light Another,"
we did "Psycobetabuckdown," "Kill a Man,"
"Phuncky Feel One," that was our demo.
Once we did "Real Estate," everything started getting dope.
So, I go to New York.
And I walk into Def Jam, and it was on Prince Street.
Mr. Bill Stephney I believe was the executive producer
of the first Public Enemy albums.
"It was all a dream," a rapper once said.
I did see that they were looking for direction,
and I wanted to really give them some refinement
on how we think about, you know, artists who are successful.
So, he's like, "All right, fellas,
what's your concept?"
I'm thinking in my head, what the fuck's a concept?
I never even heard that word,
I didn't have that shit in spelling class.
So, he breaks it down, he's like, "Listen, man.
Slick Rick's the storyteller of rap."
Public Enemy represent Malcolm X.
Run DMCs are the gangster of rap.
LL Cool J, the love guys
who got all the ladies at the club.
So, you gotta remember, Cypress comes from our generation
where you had to be different.
You could not be anything like any--
Ice-T and Ice Cube, we both got "Ice" names,
but we're different.
You know, when you went to see the Fat Boys,
you saw some Fat Boys.
Okay, cool.
So, you know, I took all that information.
The minute I got it back to Cypress,
I was like, damn, we need a logo, fellas.
We need a concept.
We gotta build this shit cracking.
They looking at me like, "This fucking dude's crazy."
I'm like, I got this shit.
One day, I was like, you know what our concept is?
Y'all gotta be the Cheech and Chong
of this motherfucker.
Is that a joint, man?
We're Cheech and Chong,
and we discovered B-Real.
-Yeah. -Breaking into our house.
Mm-hmm.
We managed to convince him to start rapping
and form a group called Cypress Hill.
-Oh... -He took our advice.
Hey, that's the first wise thing he ever did.
Right.
This was the first time that we met...
we met Chong.
Papa too...
Somehow, some way, we met him
at the Chateau Marmont.
Lovin' is all I know to do...
We were very much influenced by Cheech and Chong,
'cause you know, we were stoners,
but you know, we also wanted information about cannabis.
The thing was is that
it was very taboo to talk about it at the time.
One year, marijuana to heroin,
everybody will tell you,
"Oh, it doesn't lead to other drugs," right?
When kids ask me, "What are the worst drugs on the street?"
And you know what answers they wanna hear, right?
"That's crack, it's PCP,
turn your brain to applesauce." I say marijuana.
No one else was really engaging
like we were in hip-hop, you know.
And they-- some labels didn't understand it.
I mean, we had motherfuckers asking us, like,
"What are you guys talking about?
You guys are talking about weed?"
And we're like, "Yeah!"
We were all trying to unlock this,
and you know, get it legal.
And so, we felt the more of us in hip-hop
that talked about it, the better.
That was a no-no. Nobody smoked weed.
Other groups were saying, "I don't fuck with the herb."
I still express, yo, I don't smoke weed or sess
Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage
And brain damage on the mic don't manage nothing
But making a sucker and you equal
Don't be another sequel, express yourself
You know, we're not really bugging on that.
You know, we believe that, you know,
cannabis, hemp is more-- you know,
good for more than just smoking.
We could live by it.
And if nobody tells you that, you'll never know.
Do you feel like Cypress Hill picked up
where you guys left off kinda, or...?
Sure, in a lot of ways, yeah, with music.
I mean, we influenced a whole generation
of young musicians coming up,
and they had that mentality and that outlook on life.
And no extra charge, Cypress Hill.
I was living in Hollywood,
and we just kept doing our demos,
kept doing our demos.
One day, I played it for Joe the Butcher,
and he was like, "Yo!
You got some shit here. We wanna sign you."
My name is Joe "The Butcher" Nicolo.
I-- first and foremost, I feel like
I'm a record mixer, producer.
But I also owned-- co-owned RuffHouse Records.
We were forging a whole new different frontier.
We were making records that the guys
in the lab coats was like...
"It's got total
harmonic distortion, it's distorted. What?"
Yeah, it's like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
It's distorted. So?
Okay. Are we rolling?
-Yeah. -All right, awesome.
My name is Chris Schwartz,
and I am the CEO and cofounder of RuffHouse Records,
a company that I started with Joe Nicolo
back in the '80s, like the mid '80s.
And Philly, for all intents and purposes,
is the birthplace of gangster rap.
We signed the Outsidaz,
which featured Eminem before he was with Dre.
We signed DMX, we signed Nas,
Kool Keith, Kris Kross, The Goats, The Fugees,
Wyclef, Beanie Siegel, Cool C,
Steady B, State Property, the Mountain Brothers,
Major Figgas, of course, Schoolly D.
We did like 75 artists.
I can't always remember all the names.
So then, I got the Cypress Hill, Muggs demos.
It sounded like they set up a boombox
and put rap on it.
They were gritty, but they had punch.
I have never in this business, as long as I've been in it,
heard a demo where every song
is not only as good as the last,
but they-- it just kept getting better.
Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of...
When you come from where we come from,
and you get a good opportunity, you don't fuck it up.
And I remember that first Cypress Hill album
was menacing.
You could hear it now. It's just the edge,
the sonics, the perspective.
Yeah, Muggs, when I think about that time,
the sound was so rich
and the nuance of it was so slick.
They were like beautiful trainwrecks.
Honestly, the first time I heard it,
I didn't really know what to think of it.
I was like, damn, this is Sen and B-Real?
B-Real had changed his rap style.
Sen Dog, the way they implemented Sen Dog into it,
it was very unique, and there was nothing,
you know, especially from L.A., there was nothing like that.
Sawed off shotgun, hand on the pump...
They don't sound like anybody.
Like New York hardcore.
But the way they were--
the way they were saying it, man,
was like with an L.A. swag, okay?
There was just these infectious hooks
and grooves that I could just listen to all day long.
But it just was not doing much of anything.
It was like six months in,
and we had sold maybe 60,000 records.
And it's just like, what is wrong with people?
Why aren't they getting this?
This was during a time period where the East Coast
is, you know, very, you know, like they--
you know, New York was the epicenter of hip-hop.
So, anything that didn't have a New York sound
was kind of written off, you know?
Cypress Hill came and just kinda kicked that door in.
Look right here, Chuck.
First time I heard Cypress Hill
was actually hearing their music for the movie Juice.
Damn, yo!
Here is something you can't...
In the movie Juice, "Kill a Man" played
for like 98 seconds, which is a long time
to play in a movie.
You could sit there in the movie theater
and watch people.
When that song came on, it's like...
You see they start moving in their seats.
Here is something you can't understand
It was crazy.
We sat at 32,000 records
for months and months and months.
Next thing you know,
we're selling 50,000 copies a week.
Hey, don't, hey, don't
Hey, don't miss out on what you're passin'
You're missin', the hoota of the funky Buddha
Eluder of your fucked up styles, I get wicked
So come on as Cypress starts to kick it
'Cause we're like the outlaw stridin'
When suckers are hidin', jump behind the bush
When they see me drivin' by hangin' out the window
With my Magnum takin' out some putos
Actin' kinda loco, I'm just another local
Kid from the street gettin' paid from my vocals
Here is something you can't understand
How I could just kill a man
Here is something you can't understand
How I could just kill a man
Here is something you can't understand
How I could just kill a man
Here is something you can't understand
How I could just kill a man...
I'm like, who are these motherfuckers?
And this guy had this squeaky voice.
His vocal delivery was like Ad-Rock
of Beasties, but different.
And you know I had to gat ya
Time for some action...
Summer of '91,
that shit took all New York City over,
you know what I mean, and then it took the country over,
then it took over the world.
Our record went from not in the Top 200
all the way up to number three.
Cypress Hill!
First of all, I'd like to say thanks to my mother.
I wanna thank all the college radio stations
for plugging us up.
Last thing I got to say here...
Legalize it. Peace out.
Hits from the bong
When we first put out the album,
we didn't really think to be advocates or activists.
But once it started to hit
and they started hearing about us
and how we were championing cannabis,
a lot of the publications and the advocacy groups
started to come at us like,
"Hey, we wanna partner up with you guys."
First of all, I like the music,
and second of all, they seemed to be all about weed,
and it was just a perfect fit for High Times.
Well, and not to mention taking a lot of chances,
smoking out in public, on stage every night
in places where it was not accepted by the law at all,
and generally getting away with it.
Every place is not New York and L.A.
You know, they're playing Alabama and Kansas.
You know, and they're pushing the envelope.
As I take hits from the bong
When they asked us to do the High Times cover,
I mean, that was like one of our first milestones,
'cause I mean, we grew up off High Times Magazine.
It was important to us.
Aside from reggae music,
no one was holding up weed like that.
It was an important bridge for hip-hop.
It's such a long span of time
that they've been on that mission.
This blunt's for these motherfuckers!
They transcended hip-hop.
You know, they went beyond hip-hop.
Look at B-Real's look, you know,
which also was so important to me.
As a kid, we cared about how rappers looked.
Their look was monumental.
When you think back, the Cypress Hill look.
And it's funny, because it was a mixture
of California and New York.
Well, this is the world's famous Greenspan's
in South Gate, California.
This is where we crafted all our first looks
as Cypress Hill.
'Cause back in those days,
we used to go look through the shelves,
and the racks, and all that stuff,
and just find those pieces that were hard to find.
And that was the best part about it,
was like, the actual searching and looking for stuff.
That's fresh, dog.
I'll take this one. That one's tight.
You know, you wanted to be a fly gangster,
that's bowling shirt gangster right there.
See, this is how we do it in Cuba,
see if the pants fit your neck.
-They fit. -Is that it?
Yeah. If they go all the way
around your neck, they'll go around your waist comfortably.
There he is. What's up, Evan?
Good to see you, man.
-Good to see you. -Yeah.
So, I actually met Evan here back in 1978.
I was a little dude.
I think I just came to buy shoes or something.
And every time I would come in the store, you've always been
-a regular part of the stores. -Uh-huh.
You know, everything I tell you is true.
There goes the original 8x10 photos
that House of Pain and Cypress Hill did
back in the '90s, or 1990, or something.
Yeah, this place was key
to all of our first looks in our first videos.
This is where Sen Dog crafted his, you know,
perro loco look, Pendletons,
and you know, the creased-up shit.
If you wanted that West Coast, L.A. gangster look,
you can always find something you would fuck with.
Like, when I walked in, I saw a hat
that I'm gonna leave with.
This was all pre-internet.
There was no Instagram, no Soundcloud,
no Myspace, none of that shit.
Bands could only rely on touring,
getting their video played on MTV or the radio.
But radio, it just wasn't playing
that level of hip-hop yet.
It was getting there.
It was more the M.C. Brains,
the M.C. Hammers, the Vanilla Ices.
Hero, hero, rap, hero, hero...
Those were the 1990/91 records that were really on the radio,
because they were more like commercial.
My, my, my, my beat is ever booming
Now, "Kill a Man," off the gate,
it's very difficult, because even back then
they would have had to edit that out.
They didn't wanna use words like you're killing somebody.
Today, you just hear the radio,
and they just say drugs, and guns,
and it's just regular.
Well, back then it was a no-no.
How do you feel about that?
Do you care about airplay?
-We don't. -No, we...
We don't really care about it, 'cause for some reason
people tend to shy away from us and not give us that airplay,
to where the other groups who have, like,
they're easier to play them groups
'cause they don't take that stand like we do.
But we do take the stand, and some costs of it
is that they're not gonna wanna play us on some stations.
But, like, it's no big deal to us, you know.
-Right. -Still sell records.
If you didn't feel like you were getting
enough MTV support or radio support,
you had to get out there and win people over.
And our way of winning people over
was for us to play, so we went out and toured
with anyone who would tour with us.
Standing on the corner close to the real estate...
We understood one thing, though, at the beginning,
was the only way to get exposure to the fans
is be like a motherfucking punk rock band,
and get on the road and get in front of the people.
So-called MC's with a roll call
Then you gotta close your eyes, you can't stand...
So, to be able to lock into a Lollapalooza,
and then to be on stage with whoever.
We didn't care. We was like, let's go.
Didn't just break out, the sucker got cracked out
Hit the pipe and blacked out, with the shit from back down
So much more integrity, greatest deal I hook up
Was a funky looker, but that's another story black
Cause we're the real ones, yes, the phuncky feel ones...
My favorite time still remains those years
that we toured with Nirvana, and Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam,
and in the middle of those guys, they stuck us in there.
Remember, we watched Kurt Cobain
and all those guys perform every night,
you know, sometimes backstage and with Courtney
and you know, Dave Grohl.
And we were, you know, somehow we figured out,
you know, how to get ourselves in the position with,
you know, the biggest bands at that time.
It wasn't just work. For us, we're very competitive.
We wanted to go out and blow other fucking groups out,
and make them, you know, have to deal
with coming on after us.
We went from playing in front of 16 people
to 300, 400, 500, 600,
till we was doing European festivals.
We was the first group to headline Reading Festival,
first rap group, 150,000.
And I was like, damn. When you playing in Europe
and they're doing the soccer chants,
and everybody's waving the flags,
you know what I mean, you're like, "Fuck!"
You wanna know what tours I've been on?
These ones.
These are the little handbooks that we would make
to go on tour.
They would have the venue, the promoter, the hotel.
"Crew, after show, departure for Irvine, 418 miles.
Van, sleep in San Francisco."
This was our life for fucking many, many years.
I wasn't just a photographer or video guy.
I was the tour manager.
I'd set up the shows, I'd set up the press.
I'd set up the travel.
I took care of the bus drivers.
Most of the time, I was always the first one awake
and the last one to go to sleep.
Lollapalooza '94, Dominguez Hills,
with the Beastie Boys.
Bobo was playing here.
Bobo played for both bands.
Believe it or not.
The tour that I did with the Beastie Boys,
the first one was 1992 Check Your Head Tour,
the last leg in the States.
And the bill was, you know, Beastie Boys, Rollins Band,
and the last two weeks, they were replaced
with Cypress Hill.
I remember going in, being in the lobby,
and then here comes Sen Dog.
And me and him kinda like lock eyes.
I'm in the elevator, but this time,
I'm frying on acid, right?
And I kinda can't talk 'cause I'm, "Mm!"
All over the place, right?
So, Bobo walks in the same elevator
and I recognize him, but I more than recognize him.
I recognize him from his dad.
My pops was Latin jazz icon Willie Bobo.
Legendary percussionist.
He played with people like Tito Puente
and Miles Davis, and 14 albums under his own credit.
Known as one of the best percussionists ever.
First time on stage, I was five years old.
That was at a jazz club in North Hollywood called Donte's.
I didn't even have a rehearsal, you know,
but he knew that the music was in me
'cause I'd be beating on pots and pans,
and beating on stuff all around the house.
So, to be from a club size, to maybe like 20 people,
to like, Playboy Jazz Festival that's like all cheering
and everything like that, it's like, it's a rush.
How 'bout these guys? You played with any of them?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, of course, Tito Puente, the maestro,
he kinda took me under his wing after my pops passed.
Willie Bobo!
These are heavyweights, man.
Big time. Big time.
All the artists that, you know, eventually were sampled a lot
in hip-hop, I knew all of it.
So, eventually, when it was about time to, like,
make that crossover musically, I already knew it.
After that Beastie Boys tour,
so I started, like, nudging him to, you know,
"Come play with Cypress, come do a song with us."
And at that point, we had-- we had a single out
called "Latin Lingo," and Bobo loved that song
because of the Latin percussion work on it
and all that.
So, he was like, "I'll play on that song with you."
So, we started bringing him out.
We got my homeboy throwing down.
Eric Bobo, what the fuck's up, homie?
The Latinos always been around
since the inception of hip-hop.
Always, right?
And never really had too many prominent voices.
Cypress Hill comes out.
Freak to the funk that no one else is bringing
Not only were they Latin, they're representing
the Latin culture on the West Coast.
When they added Eric Bobo into the mix,
that was a whole 'nother dimension.
I'm down, another proud Hispano
The fact that you have a Black man
who is, guess what, Latin.
What?
'Cause of my language
I have to tell 'em straight up
It's called Spanglish
That's what made Cypress Hill so dope,
is because they sort of represented the diversity
of what California represented.
You know, the fact that they were good at it,
pssh, is a bonus.
What was cool is that the schedules didn't conflict.
So, it was like, when I was done with the Beastie Boy tour,
and it was, okay, we're done,
Cypress tour, world tour was starting up.
Eric Bobo taking hits from the bongos!
Everything was cool until...
Woodstock '94.
I'm on tour with the Beastie Boys.
Cypress called me up and said,
"Yo, we're gonna do Woodstock. We're gonna play on Sunday."
I said, "Great, that's my day off."
Somehow, that shit got switched to Saturday.
So, I proceeded to write a note to Mike D.
"I left to go to Woodstock to play with Cypress,
but I'll be back before the show."
I slip it under his door. I'm out.
...motherfucking check this out.
I remember us flying in
and seeing traffic for miles.
-Yeah. -Like people forever.
We couldn't even fucking see the end of 'em.
It's the same lineup basically.
That's the Woodstock joint, right?
-Somebody say ho! -Ho!
Woodstock 1994!
If you wanna get ready to rumble in this house tonight,
everybody, scream!
Check, check, check! Unh! Unh! Unh!
Check, check, check, check it out
When I come with the static cling, it's no thing
Make ya sing the blues like B.B. King
But when Cypress came out, it was like a fucking explosion.
It was like, and the people just went buck-wild.
It was like, yo, a'ight, we hit another level now.
I just had to sit back and look at this shit,
like is this shit really fucking happening?
'Cause I know I'll never see a crowd that big again
the rest of my life.
We ain't going out, no, we ain't going out
Yo, no, we ain't going out
We ain't going out
Comin' out the slums, it's the hoodlums
I'm pullin' my gat out on all you bums
Bring it on when you wanna come fight this
Outlaw, kickin' like Billy Ray Cypress Hill
This is the day that B and Sen,
they kind of announced me as like, you know,
a new edition to Cypress Hill, like, officially, like...
I wanna say what's up to the Beastie Boys
down in Lollapalooza right now.
Oh, yes.
And we kinda have the same thing in common.
It's this motherfucker right here.
That's the new addition to Cypress Hill, Eric Bobo,
on the motherfucking percussions at this time.
Yeah, you know, we stole Eric Bobo
from the Beasties.
You know, we decided we're gonna snatch him up,
and we knew we would win that fight all day.
We had the better weed.
Any chance the band got,
they pressed the issue.
People gave them shit for it,
but they always smoked weed on stage.
Every show was a smoke-out.
What happened on Saturday Night Live?
Yeah, so...
Ladies and gentlemen, Cypress Hill.
I'm sitting in the dressing room,
early, during rehearsal, rolling a joint.
And Sony Music comes in, and is like,
"You can't light no weed on stage tonight."
I'm like, no problem.
They came in, like, 10 times to tell me the same shit.
So, I was like, you know what?
Once again, Cypress Hill.
Yo, New York City,
they said I couldn't light my joint,
you know what I'm saying?
But we ain't going out like that.
We say...
We ain't going out
And I lit that motherfucker.
They said the phones went on right away.
Everybody started calling on there,
calling and calling and calling.
I wouldn't have lit it,
but the fact they kept pushing me
and kept pushing me, and kept pushing me,
and I'm like, man, fuck this, we punk rock.
About to light this motherfucker right now.
Sen and B were mad at me.
They was like, "Why the fuck did you do this?
We're banned, we can't go on the show no more."
You know, I didn't give a fuck.
We're banned, and didn't hurt us all.
We ain't going out like that.
Cypress Hill, we coming at you, dog!
Peace.
Right here real quick. One-- one second.
Hold-- hold on, B.
B, don't blink.
I got my eyes closed, papi, you can't tell?
I've had 'em closed this whole time.
Yeah, right there.
Perfect, are we ready to go?
-Yeah. -Yeah.
That's one thing I could always say about the unit here,
is that we could always get down on stage.
From the very first beginnings to, like, what we turned into,
we were always, like, I almost feel like
we were, like, naturals on the stage at one point,
'cause no rehearsal, get off a flight,
go to the stage and kill it, you know what I mean?
-That's the shit. -Snap in--
-just snap right into it. -Snap right into it.
You know, we were always, you know, pushing things,
like to try to do what others wouldn't expect us to do,
or what they weren't doing right.
And one of those things was, I think one of the Smoke Outs,
we planned it to where on the "Get High" portion
of the show, that we were gonna have two of the homeboys
dressed in cop suits come and pull me off
like I had violated something.
What the fuck's going on, y'all?
Can't hear that shit! What?!
And you all stirred the crowd up like crazy.
And then, I came out looking like...
-A pig. -And then the fucking--
yes, looking like the pig.
What the fuck?
Fuck you, pig!
The fuck's going on here?
I wake up every morning...
It was kinda theatrics,
and that shit was effective, 'cause everybody
was talking about that after, right?
So, it's not just a show, it's an experience.
And we always put those extra efforts
that, you know, the folks that came to see us didn't expect.
Like, at that time, hip-hop artists
hadn't figured out how to have a stage presence.
But Cypress, we did it like a fucking punk rock show,
combined with a cannabis convention,
mixed with Pink Floyd,
not to mention the giant inflatable Buddha.
Right before fucking "I Wanna Get High,"
they used to black out the crowd and smoke up the stage,
and then I used to have to creep in and fill up
this big-ass Buddha with air,
and the Buddha would just arrive in the smoke.
And then, "I Wanna Get High" beat would drop.
And then I used to shake the Buddha
so it looked like it was dancing to the beat.
Bobo!
Bring forth Excalibur!
Ohhh!
Shit!
-Yeah, no. -You remember hitting Excalibur
for the first time?
Yes, I do.
-That's the, "oh." -Mm-hmm.
'Cause you and I were trading,
'cause I was doing it first, right?
And then, you wanted to try it one day.
And I was like, "Yeah, come on, Bobo,"
and fucking Bobo did it.
And he became Big Lung Bobo.
Big Lung, baby.
Fucking hit it, hold it in even.
How you did that, I don't know,
and then fucking blow all that shit out slowly.
It was like art.
Pick it, pack it, fire it up, come along
And take a hit from the bong
Put the blunt down just for a second
Don't get me wrong, it's not a new method
Inhale, exhale
I sent you an ounce in the mail
We're gonna bronze your lungs
and put 'em in the cannabis museum.
Yep, we're taking your lungs.
Watch him have perfect lungs, when he's done,
they're still pink and looking all pretty.
Notice the resin build-up.
Plug it, unplug it, don't strain
I love you, Mary Jane!
Sing my song
Puff all night long
As I take hits from the bong
Hits from the bong
If you even notice,
this beat doesn't really lock.
I mean, it's like... Okay?
And so, at the time, people would be like,
"The beat's fucked up, man, you can't use that,
the beat's fucked up."
But it's just like, well, no, it's not,
because when you...
When you put it in with...
This kinda just, you know, it sits lazy.
Here. But lock 'em together...
You got that loopy kinda...
And that's where when you go, like...
If you weren't like... you'd be like, "It's fucked up."
"No, man, that shit ain't fucked up.
That shit's-- that shit's perfect, man.
That's-- that's feel." And then...
Making those records stoned--
and I know it's a shock to everyone
that we made those records stoned.
I mean, those sessions, man, we would blaze really hard.
But it did make a difference in the production
of the way the records were made.
So, it's like... you know, like...
"Okay," and you're listening,
and it's just like, "Oh, gotta start fading,"
and it's like, "No, no, no. Don't fade it yet.
We gotta let it keep-- let it go, man, let it go.
This is feeling good-- no!
Okay. Now, now we can start.
Slow. Slow. Fade it slow. Slow."
That's the kind of shit that happens when you're stoned.
Production choices were definitely enhanced
by, you know, being in an altered state.
This right here has every laminate
from every tour.
These are what we'd give you if you were like a friend,
a family member, or even a hot chick,
if we didn't know you, and just give you one of these.
Put it right there,
and let's roll.
Every nigga out there wanna be down with the crew...
We're in Melbourne,
home of Crocodilo Dundee.
I'm right here chilling. Got the bong.
I remember we got to Australia,
and Public Enemy, they were playing.
This was a time that you and Flavor,
y'all were just going, like, back and forth, freestyling,
like the two best hype men ever.
What's cracking, big dog?
-Nothing, dog. -What's tonight's forecast?
420, heavy smoke. Much wreckage on the stage.
High as you can 'cause you can't fuck with this
Nigga, when I got the Glock, you better duck quick
Fuck you.
But we always did sprinkle
a little bit of Latin flavor.
And when we'd go to Latin-speaking countries,
they'd want us to play those songs specifically.
That's what made us decide
to put a Spanish album out there.
And we didn't expect the impact the album would have.
It sort of opened the door
for other Spanish-speaking hip-hop albums.
Oh, I must be over here.
Born to get busy
Born to get busy, baby
Japan, scandalous.
Got the camera. This is how we do it.
Hey, look, we got one more song to do.
Born to get busy, baby
Born to get busy
Born to get busy, baby
If B-Real knew that we were gonna be somewhere,
and he knew that there wasn't gonna be no weed,
he would have the shit Fed Ex-ed out there
ahead of time.
Could this be what they call...
weed?
I am the international smuggler extraordinaire.
This is beautiful. We in Africa, baby.
That motherfucker's slowly coming over, bro.
How's that for Soul Assassins worldwide?
Buck-fucking-wild right now!
Put your fists in the air like this!
I remember our first time in Europe,
when there was a lot of build-up 'cause, you know,
on our first album, we hadn't gone there.
Unh! Unh! Unh! Unh! Unh! Unh! Unh! Unh!
Unh! Unh!
Live, let's just talk about live stage show.
Not many people could fuck with B-Real
and Sen Dog on stage, you know what I mean?
Like, their camaraderie, B-Real's showmanship.
They got respect from the East Coast,
from the South, from the North, overseas.
They got respect across the map.
We're in Germany right now.
We're in Berlin, Germany, that is,
home of Adolfo Shitler.
We're here, you know, being tourists, you know?
I remember we had just done a show in Amsterdam,
so we were stocked up on weed, and hash,
and all this other shit, right?
See, and then you can buy this kind of stuff here,
you know, in the coffee shop.
That's how you can do it.
Look at that. Beautiful.
And we had stashed it up.
And they search all our bags, but they don't find anything.
And they come to Bobo,
and they look at Bobo's passport,
the hash ball's stuck on the face of his picture.
That shit was everything.
And homeboy's like, "What is this?"
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know how that got there, bro.
He's a pro at that, man.
He's a motherfucking pro at that, man.
-What's your name? -Dr. Greenthumb.
Hello, Dr. Greenthumb? Paging Dr. Greenthumb!
Dr. Greenthumb is a character
I created from a song.
We were working on Cypress Hill IV,
and you know, I heard this beat,
and it was infectious.
I realized I had something there,
you know, in terms of a song that our fans were gonna love.
Dr. Greenthumb, come on back one time.
People can't live without the herb, man
If not, they'd be drinking and driving and swerving
But thanks to Dr. Greenthumb, weed grow
In the backyard or inside with hydro
And more than anything,
what gave life to it was the video.
People knew we were talking about weed,
but we couldn't show it
if we were gonna get MTV or BET play,
or any kind of play, so...
So, we got Little Shop of Horrors,
the original guy that made the puppet,
and he came and did the puppetwork.
That song started catching,
it became a cult classic.
And what it did for me was allow me
to create my alter ego.
Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb
That song, it's a part of who I am,
it's a part of my history, a part of my legacy.
I started throwing events under Dr. Greenthumb,
and Dr. Greenthumb's Spring Gathering,
and all this other shit that led me to eventually making
the Dr. Greenthumb brand in cannabis.
And it gave me a different identity
than B-Real, the rapper.
Doctor.
-Is it now? -What's in there?
-What's in the black box?
-Ha-ha! -Oh, shit.
I called it. Mushrooms.
Get the fuck out.
Aw, you-- hey, yo.
That's a lot of 'em, man. That's a lot of 'em.
We had many relationships with these mushrooms,
-just like these. -Oh, boy.
Well, I'm banned from those, so...
You remember-- you remember what happened
with Sen Dog.
He had some shrooms,
somebody threw a hat up on stage,
and then Sen Dog looks at the hat.
And he stops the song, he said, "Stop! Stop!
Stop! Stop!
Who threw this hat up on stage?
Who threw this? This is fucked up."
Get the fuck up!
And me, B, we were looking at each other like,
"Yo, what the fuck? What the fuck did the hat say?"
We go into the next song, which is "Insane in the Brain."
B does his verse and everything like that.
We're shroomed out.
And all of a sudden, Sen Dog gets to his verse,
and he's doing the verse like this...
"Do my shit undercover, now it's time
for the blubber, blabber--" like this to the dude, right?
After the show, Sen Dog's tripping.
Sen Dog does not let go of this hat.
And then we see him...
We see him around this trashcan,
and he's like, talking to the hat.
"Motherfucker, fucker," like this.
And then, finally, he throws the hat in the trashcan,
and then he walks off.
We all fucking think, all right, this is our chance.
Let's see what the fuck this hat says.
And we's expecting it to say "Fuck Sen Dog,"
"Fuck Cypress," whatever.
The hat said "Banana Boat Tanning Company."
That was it.
This fool thinks that this guy
was talking about the Cuban refugees
that were coming on the boats, and they called 'em banana boat.
It's a damn tanning company, but he flipped.
Those days, we used to tour like hell.
We had to be out on the road.
And I remember one day, we had just got home,
we were in LAX, and we're picking up our bags.
We just got home from touring, I hear B-Real say,
"Man, I can't wait to get back out there."
And I looked at him like, fuck, why don't I feel like that?
This is when Sen Dog...
wanted to have a good time.
-Get it on video. -Look over to first.
Can the video keep up with the donut?
The high leg kick.
--Strike, you're out!
The promoter came over and said, "Hey, man, how's it going?"
And I go, "It's going great.
Fucking, we're having the time of our life.
It only took us like 27 hours to get here, but we love it."
He goes, "Everything's cool?" And I go, "Yeah."
He goes, "Are you sure?" I go, "Yeah, yeah.
Everything's great, man. Love it."
He goes, "Um... the reason I'm asking
is 'cause one of the guys...
destroyed one of the dressing rooms."
And I go, "No way. Let me see."
And I went over there, and I was like, whoa!
Okay, and he go-- I go, "So, now what?"
He goes, "So, now what, this."
And he hands me a bill, and it was $4,000.
Think all I really needed was a rest,
but we didn't do that, man.
You know, we were, you know, tour,
put an album out, we'd tour.
Another album, and we'd tour, another album, and we'd tour,
it was a cycle.
You know, I got kinda sick of it.
So, I would do things like leave when I wanted to,
come a day late, leave a day early.
I remember one time that were all at the airport,
and he said, "I'll be right back."
And this fool had called up somebody to pick him up.
And we're waiting for him to come back from the bathroom,
and he leaves, he goes back home.
And we're going to Europe.
One time we was going to Japan
and Sen was on the plane right in front of me,
and then we started taking off, and Sen wasn't on the plane.
Sometimes he'd stay on the full tour,
sometimes he wouldn't.
You know, I was the tour manager,
so I go in to get Sen Dog,
calling the room, he don't answer.
I tell the people, hey, I need a key to the room,
you know, 'cause maybe this guy overslept.
It's like, fucking empty.
No clothes, no bags, no Sen Dog.
What was the points where, you know,
where you would leave?
Was it something we said, or something we did, or...?
-Mm. -Was there something
that pissed you off, or just was, and you were...?
No, man, it was nothing that any of the brothers did
on the tour bus or anything like that.
It was, I can honestly say it was all really me.
You know what I mean? I just didn't wanna be out there
anymore, you know what I mean, I wanted to go out.
And if we were out for six weeks,
and somewhere around the third week
I decided I'm done, I'm leaving,
and there's nothing anybody could do to hold me back.
As you can see, Sen Dog is not with our crew no longer,
and we want y'all, as well as us,
we're gonna give him a peace, and much props,
and good luck in his new career.
No matter what, he will always be a part of Cypress Hill,
because that's what homeboys are about.
-Pretty much. -If your homeboy or homegirl
needs a change in their lives, it's up to you as friends
to accept the change and help them move on
-and be understanding. -That's right.
You all know what I'm saying?
It took a little bit of wind out of the sails,
'cause it felt like we were invincible,
we could not be stopped, you know?
We're a force together.
And here's the fucking psycobeta,
the big bad fucking Sen Dog, he's, pfft, he's gone.
Peace to Sen Dog who is also not here.
I didn't have Sen, but I had Bobo,
and we just put 110% effort into each show.
Some people tell me that I need help
Some people can fuck off and go to hell
God damn, why they criticize me
Now shit is on the rise so my family despise me
The pressure was fucking on,
but I never thought that we were gonna quit,
because B wasn't gonna quit, and I was gonna be there.
And I'm hooked on chronic
He got behind the turntables, and then we would get someone
to kinda like do backups with B and everything.
If I had to do Sen's whole verse, I would do it.
Lay ya six feet underground
I'm havin' illusions, all this confusion's
Drivin' me mad inside
I'm havin' illusions, all this confusion's
Fuckin' me up in my mind
I'm havin' illusions, all this confusion's
Drivin' me mad inside
I'm havin' illusions, all this confusion's
Fuckin' me up in my mind
For a few years it was pretty much me, Bobo,
and B-Real that kept the group together,
'cause Muggs was home doing remixes
and Sen was home kicking it.
He didn't wanna tour no more,
so we gotta do what we gotta do.
'Cause they let a nigga back on the streets somehow
We were a little upset and disappointed
because you know, we wanted our brother to be there with us.
But we understood, because we were all learning
how to deal with what this was becoming for us
as artists, as young men.
Cypress por vida, man.
The fame, the responsibility
of having to show up on these tours
and go away from your family for six to eight weeks,
dealing with some shit that there is no school for.
I'm having illusions
I love you.
I'm having illusions
Peace up to the rest of the Cypress Hill crew.
Peace out to you.
No, no, I definitely felt conflicted, man.
Like, I feel-- I would feel bad
because I left the team in the middle of a game,
in the middle of a season, you know what I mean?
Of course, that played on my guilt side,
you know what I mean?
But at the same time, I felt like I couldn't breathe
while I was out there, you know what I mean,
and I just had to go somewhere where I could be like...
I actually went to a psychiatrist lady
that, like, put my head on straight.
The way she spoke to me was profound,
and it kinda like straightened me back up
and put me back where I needed to be.
And I recommend that to any artist,
that if you feel, you know, that you can't sleep,
or you can't eat, or you're stressed out,
and you know, you're worried or whatever,
talk to somebody, or not, just take a break.
You know, take a break and learn to miss it,
learn to love it again.
The bike club is called the Cypress Hillbillies.
Down for my barrio, enter my villa
The Hill cartel taking over your area
Pretty much everybody in the club
has an extension to the block from South Gate.
Back when we started, like, you know, 11, 12 years ago,
I was big into, like, NASCAR and professional bull riding.
You know, so the guys would come over to the house
or call me, and they'd be like, "Hey, man, what are you doing?"
I'd go, "Man, I'm getting ready to watch this race at Talladega,
and Dale Earnhardt's racing, and so-and-so."
And they're like, "Man, you're such a hillbilly."
And that's where it all started, from there.
People were like, "Hillbillies? What kind of name is that?"
But you know, frankly, I don't give a damn
what people think, so.
Tequila sunrise, bloodshot eyes
Realize we're all born to die, so get the money, money
Tequila sunrise, bloodshot eyes
Realize we're all born to die, so get the money, money
I started to grow more as an artist
when I kinda like stepped out of the Cypress Hill thing
and started a punk-rap band called SX-10.
Back up off me 'fore I lose my mind
I've always liked metal and rock,
but when I tried it, then I fell in love with it.
I would be the only one writing the songs there,
you know what I mean, so when I got there,
I had to really apply myself
and learn how to, you know, write complete songs
with verses, and hooks, and you know,
and everything in 'em, you know what I mean?
And them guys helped me do that.
The whole freedom of it all I think is what I dig the most.
It helped me find me as an artist.
I felt like alive again.
I remember, it was like a couple years later,
I saw Cypress Hill, it was a festival in Canada
that they were showing live on MTV.
And as I'm watching the show,
I was like, let me see these guys
and see what they're up to, and you know,
how they're doing these days, whatever, right?
Cypress Hill!
Cypress Hill! Cypress Hill!
I could almost smell the festival through the TV,
you know, the grass, the people, you know, the air and all that.
When B-Real smokes his joint, I could almost smell it.
Lala, la, la, lala, la, la
I think that was my first indication
that I was like, I wanted it again.
Finally, rapper Sen Dog has reunited with Cypress Hill
and will join them on their fourth album, due in August,
and on this summer's Smokin' Grooves Tour
launching in July with Wyclef, Gang Starr, and Public Enemy.
Sen Dog left Cypress Hill back in 1995
after their third album, "Temple of Boom."
He's been working with his own rock band SX-10,
which will release its debut album
on an independent label later this year.
How permanently had Sen Dog left the group?
I mean, was he-- did it take much persuasion
to get him back, or...?
You know, I think what it was,
was us reaching out to him,
expressing to him that we wanted him to be a part of it,
that he was always a member of this group,
no matter what he decided to do.
I think that convinced him that, you know,
he still had family here.
Then one day he just came in and said,
"I'm ready to do this."
So, we started banging songs out the next day.
It's something we definitely wanted.
We wanted, you know, him to get back, you know,
into the swing of things, but you know,
he had to feel ready himself,
you know, and get that confidence up.
And he came back with a bang, you know, reenergized.
Name of the most high.
Name of the most high, we thank you
for another good opportunity to show off our talent.
All the believers say amen.
-Amen. -Let's do this.
Sen did finally return, and Muggs came,
and it was us four on the road,
and you were back to doing tour manager.
It was like, we were able to continue on.
Any great group has had issues with one another
in spite of having a great run.
That's sort of what makes it great,
'cause you get through all the shit
and still, you know, have this brotherhood,
and still have this chemistry.
If you didn't know, now you know.
If you don't care, I don't give a fuck either.
'Cause in the meantime, we will hit you like this.
So you wanna be a rap superstar and live large
A big house, five cars, you're in charge
Comin' up in the world don't trust nobody
Gotta look over your shoulder constantly
I remember the days when I was a young kid growin' up
Looking in the mirror dreamin' about blowin' up
The rock crowd, make money, chill with the honies
Sign autographs or whatever the people want from me
So, we got to, like,
I think it was our fifth album, and you know,
the climate was changing, we was doing rock shows.
We wanted to kind of do a rock record for fun,
but then we didn't wanna step on what we had already created.
You know, and then we was like, yo,
let's just record two albums.
Let's record a rock album and a rap album,
and we'll put 'em as a double album,
but they'll be-- we won't mix 'em together.
So, if you don't want to hear the rock, you have the choice.
If you don't wanna hear the rap, you have the choice, so...
Still filling your head with fantasies, come with me
Show the sacrifice it takes...
I walked into Columbia, and I had "Rap Superstar,"
and I think "Can't Get the Best of Me"
was supposed to be the rock single.
Donny Ienner was like, "No, this is the single.
'Rap Superstar,'" and that was it.
I went back to L.A. and I started working
on the remix for "Rock Superstar."
I had B-Real come in,
he just had to say one word-- "Rock."
You wanna be a rap superstar
So you wanna be a rock superstar and live large
A big house, five cars, you're in charge
Comin' up in the world, don't trust nobody
Gotta look over your shoulder constantly
That left the beginning hip-hop.
Change the "rap" to "rock," and then built it,
and just turned into this orchestral, fucking,
mega-fucking Metallica, Led Zeppelin fucking piece,
you know what I mean, that was just bigger than life.
-Say Sen Dog! -Sen Dog!
-Say Cypress Hill! -Cypress Hill!
Cypress Hill is the first band I ever seen
that was a hip-hop band, they were stagediving
into the audience.
Oh, shit.
Like, these motherfuckers are rock stars.
When that came out, and they added in that element
of doing the live stuff on stage,
I think it just took them even further.
They were on the edge of that musically anyways,
'cause it wasn't traditionally rap,
wasn't traditionally rock, but had elements
from the samples that Muggs would use,
or just the energy of their live shows.
Peace up!
Hip-hop is a copycat genre.
What works for one is gonna, you know,
there's gonna be like 1,000 to follow.
The fact that Cypress Hill went deeper into it,
like the Black Sabbath, you know, influence,
and really, like, rock,
you know, as well as with the hip-hop,
made it like a no-brainer for the areas that they touched
that few hip-hoppers have ever gone before.
Come on, cock the hammer
Cock the hammer, it's time for action
That's when we started, you know,
recruiting Sen Dog's boys from SX-10.
I'm a chickenhawk huntin' for a chicken
Get paranoid when you hear my Glock clickin'
Speakin' to the punk that's tweakin'
With the bitch-ass styles I hit you like...
Jones house...
I'm trying to think of who else.
Well, I know DMX played rock stages.
Wu-Tang does too.
I guess it's just gotta be a certain kind of hardcore.
I guess that's the trick.
Hardcore rap translates to rock
better than softcore rap.
For a group to be on their fifth album
and be brand-new and hit, and be on the top of the world,
it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
That's a sick one.
Sponsored by Napster, Back to Basics Tour.
Streaming was brand-new.
Like, if you didn't wanna hear the radio,
you had to buy the album.
But now, these guys called Napster
were coming out with an idea
of, we're gonna put all the music on the internet
and we're gonna let everybody play it for free.
And the music industry went crazy.
But Cypress thought about it different.
Like, they paid us a good amount of money
to go on tour with Limp Bizkit,
and they're like, "We're gonna pay you this much money,
we're gonna have you go on tour, and every show is free."
So, for the first time in the history,
music was being given away for free
and concerts were being given away for free.
And we are the ones that did it with Limp Bizkit,
and people were pissed.
We wanted to remove everything that people know
about the tours of, you know, hip-hop and rock shows.
So, we removed-- as you remember--
we removed security, all security,
and put up a fence.
Motherfucking Chicago!
Watching Cypress Hill every night from the side,
just going, holy shit, I can't fucking believe
that that's those guys right in front of me on this stage.
And the crowds, you remember, you were there.
It was some of the greatest.
I get chill bumps just talking about it.
B was ruthless, man.
Sen too, they-- you know, I don't know what they are
in their hearts, but if it's stagediving punk rockers,
they have it in 'em, because they were crazier
than anybody there, having a blast.
Break your fucking face tonight
I think you guys used to buy pizzas
for all the kids in the crowd.
-Yeah. -'Cause I have photos
of all the guys carrying, like, big boxes of pizza...
-No shit. -...and giving 'em out
-to the fans in the line. -Oh, man, I gotta see that.
Well, they were waiting and camping out for days
to see Cypress Hill and Limp Bizkit.
And, so you know, we felt like we had to feed these guys.
You know, what could we do?
Pizzas are cheap. Let's do it.
Cypress Hill pizza, ...pizza,
so don't trip.
-Fucking outrageous, dude. -Oh, hell yeah.
-Whoo! -Oh my God!
-Fuck yeah, dude. -Yeah, yeah.
No other bands were doing that.
And we went-- it wasn't like we went
with all this security.
We didn't go out with no security,
we just-- it was just us.
Sometimes it was just you and I,
you know what I mean, and no one ever tripped on us,
or you know, people always treated us right.
But we also showed that we're not scared
of anybody either, so you know,
it was that, you know, mutual respect.
Any show we did, we walked out in the crowd
to meet with fans, you know.
And that was one of the keys to the longevity that we have,
was being able to be on the road,
giving them a good show every time,
and then connecting with them after.
Because it's like Chuck D told me one time
when I met him for the first time.
And I was like, "Yo, Chuck, what's good, man?
I just wanna tell you, man, we're all fans of you
on our block, and hopefully one day
we're doing what you do."
And he was like, "Hey, man, good luck,
and thanks for the love, and hopefully, you know,
you keep doing this and one day
you will be doing this shit."
You know, he gave me five minutes of his time,
and I thought, man, if I ever get where he's at,
I'm gonna be with my fans the way he was with me.
It's really-- it epitomizes what Cypress Hill
has always been about.
They're inseparable with their fan base.
They're the greatest group to do it, you know.
And when you're the greatest group to do that,
then you're in the runnings for the greatest group ever,
because you got a fan base that's gonna fight for that.
Can I get a handshake?
Sen Dog!
There are 2,600 stars
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,
but there is none more important
than the star that we're about to unveil
for Cypress Hill.
Cypress Hill is the first hip-hop group to have a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
That's just fun.
And fantastic.
Everybody, make some noise for the Hill, y'all.
All you fans out here,
we could not have done this without you.
You know, when they said we wasn't gonna get
a record deal...
Who's got the last laugh now, homeboy?
Cypress, it's like they're literally an anomaly.
They're pivotal on the West Coast front,
pivotal as Latinos in hip-hop.
They created something so special and so unique
in a really crowded genre.
That's what allowed Cypress Hill
just to have a dominant reign over hip-hop.
And they're still here to this day,
and that's a beautiful thing.
I admire that, with an envious smile.
Long before the days of legal dispensaries
and medical marijuana, Cypress Hill were advocates
of that sticky-icky-icky oo-wee!
Cypress Hill has definitely contributed
to legalizing marijuana in the U.S.
The sound of marijuana is Cypress Hill.
Trailblazers.
There, you get it? Trailblazer, "blazer"?
Blazers, yeah.
This is gonna be an altar for all stoners,
for all cannabis culture right here.
Come light your candles, dump your blunts,
dump your joints, dump your bongs right here.
Pray for a great harvest, and thank you fucking very much.
I preserve moments in time,
and sometimes that's all you got.
Sometimes you don't know what you got until you look back.
And you see what you've been doing for 30 years.
All these good times and bad times,
and all these memories.
And you realize, like, fuck, man, like...
I really got some shit here.
This palm tree was nowhere near this when...
Yeah, it was like, I didn't even remember it.
This was a little-ass tree when this guy was here.
-Fuck, 30 years later? -Yeah, fuck.
We spent a lot of time on this block,
you know, talking about what we wanted to do.
You know, and having a belief in ourselves
when no one else did,
'cause we were just trying to make music
that related to us.
And if anybody else could relate, great.
But we did not know the impact it would have.
You know, I tell you that it's beyond a brotherhood.
It's a familia, you know what I mean?
And we made special things happen,
and we got upset with each other,
and you know, made up, and came back
and did the whole thing all over again.
You know, it's one of those eternal flames
that we keep lit, by all of us going
and just being masters in our crafts.
Better men, better friends, better at our arts,
better at business.
I mean, look at us.
Thirty years later.
It was all organic.
Assassin
We rise and fall in the rat race to win it all
Standing tall as we ever did, and if you recall
That very moment you seek an opponent
You better own it like you're seeking atonement
Or you've blown it
Time after time, haters pray for all decline
They could never dim the light that shines in this paradigm
The vibe intertwined the love and hate frame of mind
Living in the balances
I'm dancing with the devil's kind
Reminded by the thin line
We walking as we lead the blind
Step into the stairway to heaven
Where we all resign
What you find is the vision of the grand design
We are eternal in this journal
You might find the sign
Live free, tell it how you see it, you can be it
See your dream and seize it
Unlock your dream and release it
It ain't a secret, we believe it, never doubt it
Watch the words manifest
In every way you heard us talk about it
It's a long road, see you at the crossroads
From a soldier to a leader, we in boss mode
It's a long road, see you at the crossroads
From a soldier to a leader, we in boss mode
We're one in a million
Making you feel this feeling you're feeling
You hit the ceiling with one hit of the herbal healing
It's a killing how we run the set and move the masses
We advance taking chances as the time passes
Never gamble with your life when the odds are against you
But if you've been through what I've through
Then you must continue
And now we pray before we play as we slay the venue
The cultivation of the fan base not on the menu
Stopping not an option
You get in the way, then take precaution
We're way too heavy and the momentum is jaw-dropping
Not very often do you see the likes of these in common
Herbal shaman here to spread the love and hit the...
If you have a long run, you ain't never done
Never been the one to run away, never leaving, son
We never fade away while others getting laid away
Roaches getting sprayed away, haters, you can hate away
It's a long road, see you at the crossroads
From a soldier to a leader, we in boss mode
It's a long road, see you at the crossroads
From a soldier to a leader, we in boss mode
Assassin