Cypress Hill

South Gate

Cypress Hill began in South Gate, California. Brothers Senen Reyes (Sen Dog) and Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (Mellow Man Ace) were born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and their family emigrated to the United States in 1971. In 1988 the brothers teamed up with Louis Freese (B-Real) and Lawrence Muggerud (DJ Muggs), a New York City native, to form a group called DVX, short for Devastating Vocal Excellence. Mellow Man Ace soon left for a solo career, and the remaining three renamed the group after a street in South Gate.

Muggs had moved there from Queens at the age of 14 and started out DJing at house parties. He later said the group's demos, made on a Tascam four-track at his house, won them a deal with Joe Nicolo's label Ruffhouse Records. He built beats on an E-mu SP-1200 sampler, and for the debut album he worked from only two crates of records.

The debut

Cypress Hill was recorded at Image Recording Studios in Los Angeles between August 1990 and May 1991, produced by Muggs, and released by Ruffhouse and Columbia on 13 August 1991. Its lead single was a double A-side, The Phuncky Feel One backed with How I Could Just Kill a Man, which reached number one on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks chart and 77 on the Hot 100. Hand on the Pump and Latin Lingo followed, the second mixing English and Spanish, a habit the group kept. The album peaked at 31 on the Billboard 200 and sold two million copies in the United States. Kevin Powell of Rolling Stone found it engaging and innovative despite its hard-core messages.

In 1992 the group had songs in Juice, Lethal Weapon 3 and White Men Can't Jump, played Lollapalooza on the side stage, and toured with the Beastie Boys.

Black Sunday

Black Sunday came out on 20 July 1993 and went straight to number one on the Billboard 200. It sold 261,000 copies in its first week, the highest Soundscan figure for a hip-hop group at the time. Muggs said every beat and rhyme was done in six weeks, programmed in his New York apartment on SP-1200 samplers and then taken to Nicolo's Studio 4 in Philadelphia. The lead single, Insane in the Brain, reached 19 on the Hot 100 and brought the group its first Grammy nomination. I Ain't Goin' Out Like That earned a second in 1995.

On 2 October 1993 they played Saturday Night Live. That year they also appeared on the Judgment Night soundtrack, with Pearl Jam on Real Thing and Sonic Youth on I Love You Mary Jane. Percussionist Eric Bobo became an official member during their set at Woodstock 94.

Later years

III: Temples of Boom arrived on 31 October 1995 with a slower, spookier sound and reached number three on the Billboard 200. Its lead single was Throw Your Set in the Air. Sen Dog, frustrated by the touring schedule, left unexpectedly before an overseas tour, and he rejoined in early 1998. IV followed in October 1998 and went gold. Skull & Bones (2000) split into a rap disc and a rock disc and reached number five.

Stoned Raiders (2001) peaked at 64, and Till Death Do Us Part (2004) was followed by a hiatus for Muggs. Rise Up came out in 2010. Muggs returned as main producer for Elephants on Acid in 2018, and in April 2019 Cypress Hill became the first collective hip-hop group to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Back in Black (2022) was the first album without Muggs on any track, and the Showtime documentary Insane in the Brain, directed by Estevan Oriol, appeared the same year. Their eleventh album, Dios Bendiga, is sung entirely in Spanish.

Influence

Eminem, Baby Bash, Paul Wall, Post Malone, Luniz and Fat Joe have cited the group as an influence, as have the nu metal bands Deftones, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine and Korn. The bassline at the end of Korn's 1994 single Blind is a direct tribute to Cypress Hill's Lick a Shot. The debut appears in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It was reissued in 2016 as a skull-logo sculpture limited to 1,991 copies, and in 2021 as an expanded 30th anniversary edition.