Cypress Hill 1991 TV Interview, B-Real Freestyle's "Pigs" with Mellow Man Ace poppin in (Part 2)
Channel: Gary Baca TV
Date: 24/01/2021

Get the latest Cypress Hill album Elephants on Acid here: https://cypresshill.lnk.to/ElephantsOnAcidFA 

B-REAL TV & PODCAST https://www.youtube.com/user/BRealTV

When Cypress Hill came out they were known as the Cypress Hill Posse for a very short time.  

Cypress Hill is the debut studio album by Cypress Hill. It was released on August 13, 1991(2 months after this interview) by Ruffhouse Records and Columbia Records. The album was critically and commercially successful proving to be a major success for the group. Receiving major air-play on urban radio and college radio helped the albums popularity. The album went Double platinum in the U.S. with over 2 million units sold. The album is broken down track-by-track by Cypress Hill in Brian Coleman's book Check the Technique published in 2007, 16 years after the album release. Senen Reyes (aka Sen Dog or Sen Stiff) and Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (also known as Mellow Man Ace) are brothers born in Pinar del Río, Cuba. In 1971, their family immigrated to the United States from Cuba. They initially lived in South Gate, California. In 1988, the two brothers teamed up with New York City native Lawrence Muggerud (aka DJ Muggs, previously in a rap group named 7A3) and Louis Freese (aka B-Real) to form a hip-hop group named DVX (Devastating Vocal Excellence). The band soon lost Mellow Man Ace to a solo career, and changed their name to Cypress Hill, after a street in South Gate. After recording a demo in 1989, Cypress Hill signed a record deal with Ruffhouse Records. Their self-titled first album was released in August 1991. The lead single was the double A-side "The Phuncky Feel One"/"How I Could Just Kill a Man" which received heavy airplay on urban and college radio. The other two singles released from the album were "Hand on the Pump" and "Latin Lingo", the latter of which combined English and Spanish lyrics. The success of these singles led to the album selling two million copies in the US alone. Cypress Hill contributed the song "Shoot 'Em Up" to the soundtrack of the movie Juice. The group made their first appearance at Lollapalooza on the side stage in 1992. Black Sunday, the group's second album, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in 1993, recording the highest Soundscan for a rap group up until that time. Also, with their debut still in the charts, they became the first rap group to have two albums in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 at the same time. With "Insane in the Brain" becoming a crossover hit, the album went triple platinum in the U.S. and sold about 3.26 million copies. One of the band's most striking aspects is B-Real's exaggeratedly high-pitched nasal vocals. In the book Check the Technique, B-Real describes his nasal style, saying his rapping voice is "high and annoying... the nasal style I have was just something that I developed... my more natural style wasn't so pleasing to DJ Muggs and Sen Dog's ears" and talking about the nasal style in the book How to Rap, B-Real says, "you want to stand out from the others and just be distinct... when you got something that can separate you from everybody else, you gotta use it to your advantage."  In the film Art of Rap, B-Real credits the Beastie Boys as an influence when developing his rapping style. Sen Dog's voice is deeper, more violent and often shouted alongside the rapping; his vocals are often emphasized by adding another background/choir voice to say them. Sen Dog's style is in contrast to B-Real's, who says, "Sen's voice is so strong," and "it all blends together" when they are both on the same track. Both B-Real and Sen Dog started writing lyrics in both Spanish and English and B-Real was inspired to start writing raps from watching Sen Dog and Mellow Man Ace writing their lyrics, and originally B-Real was going to just be the writer for the group rather than a rapper. Their lyrics are noted for bringing a "cartoonish" approach to violence by Peter Shapiro and AllMusic. The sound and groove of their music, produced by Muggs, has a stoned aesthetic; with its bass-heavy rhythms and odd sample loops ("Insane in the Brain" has a pitched-altered horse neigh looped in its chorus), it carries a psychedelic value, which is lessened in their later albums. For using rock/metal instrumentation the band is sometimes classified as a rap rock/metal rap group. The double album Skull & Bones consists of a pure rap album ("Skull") and an entire CD of rap/rock/nu metal songs ("Bones"). In the live album Live at The Fillmore some of the old classics are played in a rock/metal version, with Sen Dog's band SX-10 and Eric Bobo playing the drums. While the first album and Black Sunday follow a more minimalistic and funky sound, III (Temples of Boom) has a very dark, spooky atmosphere and heavy beats, sometimes approaching hardcore rap. IV introduced more diverse sounds on the beats while maintaining the hardcore edge. The first albums are mostly influenced by psychedelic music. @sendog