Cypress Hill Children of the Bong

Rip It Up, Issue 220, 1 December 1995, Page 28

Cypress Hill Children of the Bong

Well, the stoneh loco Latinos an back anil, In third album Is not common. Their first album caused a bit el a stir — a violent, fuelled portrayal el inner city, living delivered by two rappers with nasal drones and a BJ with a talent for rough scratchy music infused with Latino Jan. They struck a chord and blew up big with both hip-hop headi and the while kids in the suburbs. They were also responsible for the current trend in hip-hop to brag about how much weed you be smoking. The second album, Black Sunday, sold twice what the i first did, but even the Hill admit II was a rush Job, and it was seen by many as a disappointment. There was no real progression from the first album, although It did contain the stoner anthems 'I Wanna Set High' and 'Hits From The Bong’. Muggs apparently spent lime to get H together for the third album, and it shows. The Temples of Boom has an eerie sense ol space, depth and paranoia. The sound Is balanced, composed and confidently blunted, as it seems is one Mr B Heal, who calls right on lime lor a rap about blunts, I beats and beatdowns. He sounds tired and drained, but then, rappers are notorious for having a, shall we say, unenthusiastic altitude I towards media reviews. ►

In 95, hip-hop’s self affirming battle cry has been to ‘keep it real’. Where did you get your name, and what does it represent for you? “My name goes back to when I was bangin’. It just represents being me, not trying to be someone else, you know, no gimmicks, just be real. That term [‘keep it real’] has been overused and misused. We don’t even associate ourselves with it. Usually the people who are saying ‘keep it real’ are the ones who ain’t.”

What about the ‘Paid in Full’ mentality? Is it wrong to concentrate so much on the materialistic money aspect? Is hip-hop losing sight of its spirituality and art, such as breaking and bombing, which seems to have lost out to gangsta ideals of ‘bitches and money’? “To us, music is the most important thing. If you make good music, then people will like it, you’ll sell records and you’ll get your money. The hip-hop industry is vital as a means to get paid for a lot of niggaz and Latinos that don’t have a lot of other options. If you’re just making music for the money, with no love for it, then people can see through that. And I’m to old for breaking, I forgot all my moves!” In what seems to be the hip-hop cliche, you dropped out of school and fell into gang banging. What was it like to live that lifestyle, and how did you get out? “Intense, you never knew what was going to happen. It was like rolling the dice — maybe you win, maybe you lose. It was a bad time, you know. I was selling drugs and just not thinking about what I was doing to people. One day I rolled the dice and got shot, which starts to make a brother think, and not long after that Muggs and Sen Dogg convinced me to start a group with them.” In hip-hop, at the moment, it’s fashionable to smoke and rap about dope, but before you guys came out, hip-hop was pretty much antidrugs. What happened? “I think everyone’s just jumped on the bandwagon. People are always biting our shit, but dope is dope, if you like it, smoke it." What about the politics of legalisation? You are a spokesperson for NORML, so you obviously support it. What effects do you think it would have on society? “Well, I’d like to see decriminalisation, not legalisation. If it were legal, then you don’t know what they are going to put in it. You’d have the government and big companies putting chemicals in it, like they do with tobacco, and that’s not what it’s about.”

The new album is called The Temples Of Boom which relates to the group’s love of chronic and music. Can you elaborate? “The studio is our temple and everyone’s body is their temple. It’s just a kind of concept, you know. When you’re listening to our album you’re locked down in the Temple of Boom.” Your music can be described as paranoid, bleak, ominous, blunted and, er, dark. Where

does this darkness come from? “Just the kind of lives we’ve come from and are leading. It’s a dark world we’re living in. Are we paranoid? I’m just aware of my surroundings. Some people get jumped because they are not aware of their surroundings, and where I been, that shit goes down, OK. So, if you’re leading a certain lifestyle, you gots to watch your back. That’s not paranoid, that’s smart.” On ‘No Rest For The Wicked’ you dis Ice Cube. Wassup wit dat?

“We had let him hear ‘Throw Your Set In The Air’ a long time ago, and he asked if he could put it on the Friday soundtrack. We said no, because we wanted to save it for our first single. Two months later, we’re listening to ‘Friday’, and there’s a lyric that goes: ‘Oh, yeah, throw your neighbourhood in the air,’ and he titled Caution’s album South Central Los Scandalous, which is also from ‘Throw Your Set’. He ripped off our terminology. Have you spoken to him about it? “Yeah, he denied it. That’s typical though, no man wants to admit he bit another man’s shit” Do you expect a rebuttal? “I would expect nothing less, he has to. He’s got to know this is like a war. It’s not just gonna be, he says something, we say something. It’s not gonna be over until he either admits he bit another niggaz shit, or one of our careers is over.”

After ail the talk about this album being better than Black Sunday, now it’s out, what has the reaction been, how do you feel about it, and will there a fourth? “A lot of people are saying it’s more like the first album, and I think its a stronger album than one and two. At the moment, we all have a few side projects happening — Muggs is doing a lot of producing and remixing, I’m working on an animated movie I’ve written called ‘Psycho Realm’ — but yeah, at this stage I think there will be another album.”

Thanks, B Real. Anything else we should know about?

“Yeah, Cypress Hill will still be in effect for 96. Watch for the Hill tour coming at ya.”

ANDY