← The 500 with Josh Adam Meyers
The 500 with Josh Adam Meyers
138 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic - B-Real
01:54:09
B-Real of Cypress Hill joins Josh to discuss Dr. Dre’s ground-breaking debut album after leaving N.W.A.
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- [00:01]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
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- [01:05]
Josh Adam Myers
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- [01:46]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
The 500. The 500. J been walking us down through that 2012 edition, so it ain't nothing too new.
- [02:03]
Josh Adam Myers
Five hundreds more to go.
- [02:05]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And in need of a friend. The king of peaceful, angelo. Talking the 500 until the end talking the 500 until the end with my man JL on the 500. Talking the 500 until the end. The ad to my collection. The selection symbolizes don't take a toast, but don't choke if you do. You have no clue. Me and my homie Snoop Dogg came to do. It's like this. I like that. Like this and it's like that like this I like that and it's like this and who gives a about those? So just chill to the next episode.
- [02:47]
Josh Adam Myers
This is 1992 and 93 and so on and so forth. It's nothing but a G thing. It's by Dr. Dre from the incredible 1992 record the Chronic. It's also number 138 out of 500 on the 500 with Josh Adam Myers. What's up, party people? Fleece army. Did you see who the guest was today? Dude, man. Emily coming through. Dude. Code red. Emily killing the game. All right, let me do my spiel. Thank you for tuning in. To the only podcast where a comedian's going through Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums. And we're at number 138. Dude, we're going downtown like Julie Brown. Thank you to everybody that came out to Vancouver this past weekend. It was a blast. This weekend I'm at Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, at Quasadas. Then the next weekend I will be in Jansville, Wisconsin. The following weekend, Phoenix, Arizona. Then you've got New Orleans, my birthday weekend. Then I'm doing a big show in Baltimore, Charlotte, North Carolina, Montville, Connecticut. I've got. What else do I have? Oh, yeah, I'm opening up for my buddy Jeff Arcur. He's going to do his Netflix special taping and I'm going to be doing all the, the, the work to make sure his crowd is nice and jazzed. And then 2026 dates are coming out. Go to Josh Adam Myers.com for tickets. And most importantly, follow me, please follow me at Josh Adam Myers on all social media. Yeah, man. A lot of good stuff going on. I'm so excited to see you, dude. There was a guy that I met, oh my God. I want to give him a shout out. My buddy, Seth Malin. Follow him at Malin Art. I think that's what his handle is. Yeah, Malin Art. M A L I N A R T T T T. He is a true fleece army member. You're now a general, bro. And for that we're going to send you some merch. So if you subscribe to the Patreon, you will get merch. And our merch is incredible, guys. Patreon.com backslash the 500 podcast. Support the show. Support Emily, support Morty, Support me. Support Wayney, Support jt, Support one of our many editors, Adam Logan or Pete. Either way, we are a group of people working our ass off to give you this show every week. So follow us on social media, follow us on YouTube, YouTube.com backslash the 500 podcast. Support the show. You'll get merch. We love you. All right. The Chronic. So being that I'm a guy from Maryland, I was always drawn to the east coast hip hop stuff to some about it. Wu Tang Tribe, Called Quest, epmd, Public Enemy. But Snoop Dogg was arguably my first real jump because I didn't get into Tupac until later. I was, I was very. And I was an anti Tupac. I respect him and now I love him. But I think there was just a level of I just was so east coast and so it took A minute for me to really find my way besides Doggy Style. And then obviously the Chronic, which we came up before Doggy Style was enough for me to like solidify it. And that is what started making me a fan of what the LA and the west coast people are doing. And now it's just become a hub of where hip hop exists. And the other group is probably my favorite Los Angeles based hip hop group mostly. And we talk about this because their sound was really influenced by people that I loved, like Public Enemy. Today, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce our guest, the one and only Be Real of Cypress Hill. I mean, come on, dude. Code red. Emily Kagan Meter is off the charts, dude. They have a live record out right now called Black Sunday Live at Royal Albert Hall. It's them performing one of their best records with the London Symphony Orchestra. It just came out. It's going to be showing the performance in theaters in March and April. Check out the link in our description for more details. Also, guys, check out Bereal TV on YouTube because this dude is killing the game. Interviewing guests Pride updates from the road When Cypress Hill is touring, arguably a legend. We were supposed to do an hour and I think we ended up doing almost an hour and a half. So B, thank you so much for taking time out to speak with us. I had a fucking blast, dude. This is why I do the podcast raid review. And most importantly, subscribe to the 500 listen free on all platforms, anywhere you get your pods. Follow me at Josh Adam Myers on all social media. Go to the podcast page at the 500 podcast. Email the podcast@500podcastmail.com, follow the Facebook group run by Crazy Evan. And for all things 5 00, go to the website the 500 podcast calm. All right, y', all not left to say. But here we go with number 138 out of 500 with Dr. Dre's the Chronic. Dude, we. We've been doing this show for God damn six and a half years going on seven years now. And I feel like we've been trying to get you since the jump. So the fact that you're coming on for this record, it almost feels apropos, you know what I mean? Just doing the chronic, talking to Dr. Green Thumb. I mean, not just am I a huge fan, but this, our fans are a huge fan of your music. So we can't thank you enough, brother, for taking time out to speak with us today, bro.
- [08:35]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Thanks for having me. Of course, of course.
- [08:37]
Josh Adam Myers
So, I mean, one, thank you for coming on. I I want to get this out of the way so we can help you promote this. But it looks like the Simpsons knows the future. I don't know how they predicted Donald Trump. I don't know how they predicted some of the shit that has gone down, but in Homer Palooza, one of my favorite episodes that you guys were in, you guys got too stoned and didn't realize if you ordered the National Symphony Orchestra, and lo and behold, y' all did it. So please tell us about the new project so we get that out of the way. And, And. And did the Simpsons influence it? Like you guys got high again? You know, we should do that.
- [09:23]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They did influence that, you know, because after the episode, our. Our bandmate DJ back then and producer, who is. Who's still a member of the. The group DJ Mugs, was like, hey, you know, that's. That's something we maybe should pursue. We should think about that. That could be cool. And it was an idea we floated around for. For a couple years, and then we kind of sort of forgot about it because our. Our tour schedule was very extensive at that point. So we were constantly on and off the road. And he mentioned it somewhere in an interview that we were going to do that. And, you know, well, well, we were on the road and, you know, through the years after we. He had mentioned it, that's when RZA went and did one with the Wu Tang. You know, sort of, I guess maybe got inspired by what Mug said. But for us, it was like, yeah, you know, it seemed like it could be a good idea if we put all the right elements together. It took years before it actually happened because, I mean, we had to figure out how to reach out to the lso, who to reach out to and all that stuff. And it sort of just fell by the wayside for some years. And then we started revisiting the conversation after a tweet when X was still Twitter, one of us, I think it was maybe us, I put out a tweet with the Simpsons. You know, the orchestra and I tagged the LSO in it, and they. And they reposted it. We were like, oh, shit, they reposted what we just did. They're paying attention to us because we didn't know if we were on their radar or not. I mean, you know, who knew if they paid attention to the Simpsons episode and the possibility of linking. And at the time, you know, the LSO players that. That were maybe a part of the LSO when the sketch happened, maybe weren't there. They Weren't there anymore. Who knew? But they reposted us and we thought, oh, that's a, that's an open door right there. So we immediately started talking about the what ifs and, you know, what would it take to make it happen? And they gave us all, all the, the, the, I guess the template on how you would put this together. And we, you know, eventually got our shit together when we were off the road. Finally we took a little bit of time to, to actually try and make it happen and like, you know, get the charts made and all that. And then trying to book a date. And then, you know, it turned into, well, why don't we film this and record it and make it. Yeah, you know, something bigger. And I don't know if they anticipated that that would happen, but they were, you know, they were with it. When they heard about it, they were like, we will help push it. We will help promote it. We love the idea. And fortunately it came to pass.
- [12:26]
Josh Adam Myers
That's what's up, dude. And I, I got two part question on that because you said the older Simpsons. Because goddamn, the Simpsons have been out for almost 40 years at this point. I mean, I was nine years old, I'm 45 now, arguably. And you were in the greatest chunk of comedic writing on television ever. But what I got to know is I know a lot of those musicians eventually move on and retire. Did all the younger symphony musicians that were. That were there in London, were they aware of your material and weren't they fans?
- [12:53]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Oh, yeah, yeah, that was the crazy shit. Because, you know, we didn't anticipate that they would even, you know, know us like that, maybe heard of us and stuff like that, you know, because we've been around for a very long time now, so we thought maybe they've heard of us, but maybe don't, you know, that maybe they're just into classic music. Who knows, right? But what we found was that when we got there, we had played a few symphony shows to get us there. You know, when we announced we'd be doing symphony shows, we did Colorado, San Diego and somewhere else first. And, you know, it started becoming a real thing. And we noticed that there was hip hop fans in a lot of these orchestras. You know, the younger, the younger fans were definitely into hip hop, but we found that the people our age and older were actually into our shit. And we're like, well, well, you know, maybe. Maybe some of the LSO folks might know who we are. But it's the LSO we can't assume so when we finally get there for rehearsals, a number of them knew who we were and were fans of the music from, you know, the older folks that were slightly older than us to Cat to people our age and to some of the younger fans. And, you know, they embraced us and they were like, oh, we are so excited to do this. This is like a first for us. And, you know, they made us feel at home. They made us feel like, you know, they, they respected our line of music and they respected it enough to have it down. Like, we only had two rehearsals with the LSO and they, they knocked it on the head like nobody's business. It was, it was, it was an amazing experience. I. I couldn't believe we were there, to be honest.
- [14:44]
Josh Adam Myers
Did they make any suggestions for the arrangements or was it like, you guys? Because, I mean, Mugs is like, his sound, like, knowing. And then, I mean, this is a compliment. I'm not just saying this coming from like, like the Public Enemy is being one of my favorite hip hop groups. And I can hear the influence with Bugs from Terminator X, like, right. Sitting the conductor and sitting down with the lso. Like, did they come to. Was it all. Was it everybody? Like, what we should do is add the section here or was like, was Mugs and the conductor like the two points that were kind of meeting and then you and Sen could kind of just be like, put notes on top of that and you let Mugs just do his thing.
- [15:19]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Well, oddly enough, Bugs Mugs didn't. Didn't take part in this. And, And.
- [15:24]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, interesting.
- [15:25]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah. And what we did for it was when we originally sent the sheet music out and stuff like that, they thought, you know, who. Our guy in Colorado. I.
- [15:38]
Josh Adam Myers
My.
- [15:39]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
His name slips my mind right now. I feel horrible about it. But when he, when he originally started writing the charts, he thought that he was going to be playing on top of our tracks. And you know, so it was meant to supplement and add sound, but, you know, we went back and told them, hey, look, Eric Bobo, our percussionist and drummer, he's also our music conductor. Yeah. For the group now and. Or coordinator. And, you know, we said, hey, look, we're gonna bring our guys to play the, the live parts of, of the music in terms of baseline key, key parts and, and drumming. We want you to like, you know, recreate some of the stuff that's actually on the album and, and be the force of it instead of playing on top of what we have. So that was the one instruction we gave. We gave them. And you know, he did an excellent job. But when we went to London and did it with the London London Symphony Orchestra, we had a conductor by the name of Troy Miller. And Troy is also a writer and arranger and all that stuff. Right. And, you know, I made one suggestion to him. I said, hey, look, whatever you want to change, we are cool with. And if you can make it slightly darker because, you know, the vibe for Black Sunday was. Is a dark vibe. And I felt like in the first chartings it was dark, but not dark enough. It was a little too bright. And we asked the LSO to darken it up for us. And they sure did it. I mean, it was amazing that they added to it. It was incredible. And, you know, I never really got Muggs's take on it. I suppose I'm going to ask him next. Next time we're in a room together and, you know, see how he felt about it. To see, you know, or to hear his. The music that he put together for that album translated into this symphonic style. I'll tell you, we sold. We sold the place out. And it was the most different show for any European that has come to our shows, because usually it's our traditional hip hop show where there's mosh pits, there's stage diving, there's crowd surfing, and all the things. And the weed smoke, of course. Right. And we didn't. This particular show was none of that. We didn't smoke any herb on stage as to respect the platform and the style that we were doing. And. And we wore the suits and all that stuff. And the crowd ate the up. I mean, they didn't get to mosh pit or anything, but they were singing every song with us, and I love it. Absorbing the vibe and it was an incredible experience.
- [18:33]
Josh Adam Myers
All right, Which I gotta ask this to bridge the gap between. Between that show and the Chronic. Did you get high with any. With the conductor, with the woodwind section? I mean, after the shows, y' all just like roll a split out back and be like, yo, y' all trumpet killed it. Like, it just.
- [18:50]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
We didn't get high with tr. We got. We got high with a couple of different guys in, like, the brass string. And. Yeah, there was a few of them that. That partook with us after the show for sure.
- [19:05]
Josh Adam Myers
Because you guys. You guys are like on the. When people talk about perfect blunt rotation, which I don't know if you're a blunt guy, I know you're a joint dude, but it's like Cypress Hill, you know, you know, Cheech and Chong, you're talking Snoop Dogg, like, you can go on and on Wiz Khalifa, whoever it is. There's people that are like. When they're associated and listen, your music stands on its own. But, like, from watching the documentaries and all that. I know and how I was introduced, being in like, late middle school, early high school and then getting into pot and then hearing you guys, it almost went hand in hand along with this record. So to. To bring it over to the Chronic, which I'm not shocked that you're here, but it's because it's obviously the Chronic. But being, you know, like. Like I always thought Dr. Drake, especially from NWA, right in one of those tracks and express yourself, he says he doesn't smoke weed.
- [19:59]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Right.
- [19:59]
Josh Adam Myers
Do you know what I'm saying?
- [20:00]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Is he. Is.
- [20:01]
Josh Adam Myers
Is he a poser? Like, is he a pot poser? To have a record as. Whereas, like, you guys live it and then you have Dr. Dre, who literally on one of their biggest songs is like, I don't smoke Cess. Like, your thoughts on that? I think.
- [20:15]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I think that was a lyric Ice Cube wrote for him, because Ice Cube used to write most of the lyrics for. For Dre at the time. And I believe Easy. And I don't think none of them were into weed yet. I mean, I think they were drinking and stuff like that, but none of them were weed heads. Maybe low key, they were. But in terms of hip hop, you know, it's very taboo to be talking about that you smoked weed or you were into it because you just would not get any play. Yeah, but there were a few hip hop artists that did mention, like, EPMD was one of them and Tone Loke was one of them and a couple other just minor references and stuff like that. But when we came out, we fully embraced it because it was who we. Who we. Who we are. You know, we're definitely advocates, activists and connoisseurs and consumers of. Of cannabis and. And the whole culture of it. And, you know, this was just something. Who we were. It wasn't anything we planned. And I think because we were so comfortable being that and being upfront and out there about it, about it and then being embraced, you know, by High Times, who had never put a hip hop group on their cover and up until we came out and seeing some of the barriers we were breaking with. With the cannabis, not just the music. I mean, because it. It went hand in hand. I mean, for us, the music is, you know, most important. And the cannabis was a part of some of the message messaging that. That we put out there. But it was a combination of a lot of things that made our. Our music. But one thing that that happened was that people that were normally in the closet about weed or, you know, didn't want the judgments, they said it. They peeled off that coat and said, we are weed heads and we're cool. Cypress Hill is. Is doing it. We're doing it with them. And it just. I think it made other artists inspired by, like, saying, you know what it. We're gonna come out with it. And with Dre, you know, I. I know he smokes. You know, I've smoked with him and stuff like that. Whether he's.
- [22:34]
Josh Adam Myers
My next question. Yeah.
- [22:35]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Whether he was a huge weed head at the time that. That the Chronic came out. I don't know. It could have been that he had started experimenting with it. I mean, he had Snoop Dogg with him, who was definitely a weed smoker, so it probably opened up his mind. And I know that. That Cypress Hill inspired a lot of those guys to come out and wave that weed flag. I mean, Red man and Method man were a couple of them, and they've admittedly said it. So, yeah, I think we made it okay for other artists to say, you know what? Fuck it, we're gonna come out and champion the weed too. And. And to be honest, that's what needed to happen for. For this legalization to conversation to become what it has become today. You know what I mean? So I never got. I never got, like, upset that people were, like, dancing in our lane or anything like that, because, I mean, we weren't the first Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and. And those artists were the first. And then the reggae artist and then the jazz artists. Well, the jazz artists to begin with reggae, and then eventually other musical forms. But, like, I think the three that took to cannabis the hardest. Jazz, reggae, and hip hop. Oh, for sure. We just happened to hit our messaging with. To the mainstream, and I think that unlocked a lot of things for a lot of people and. And saying, you know what? We're going to follow that and we're gonna do our version of it. And the Chronic is a classic, and I'm glad to be an influence of it, dude.
- [24:11]
Josh Adam Myers
I. It's. I just can remember getting high and having to hide that, you know, for just. You had to. Just anything you could do to make sure your eyes weren't red. You didn't smell like it. Like, I don't think kids realize how lucky they are now for the hard work and the minor. I remember my buddy getting busted for a gravity Bong hit, amount of weed and having to be on Paul Blim and Jeremiah, remember?
- [24:34]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah.
- [24:35]
Josh Adam Myers
Need to be on probation for a year, do piss tests. And it's like now, dude, they always say if you, if you get, if a cop sees you smoking in LA or the only reason you got to hide it is just so people don't ask you for a hit, right? And, and you guys for sure, like at the forefront of it, did you, did you think it would take this long or, you know, because obviously it's, I mean It's. That was 30 some odd years ago almost.
- [24:56]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah, I don't think any of us knew how long it was going to take. We were just trying to be optimistic and put the work in all the freedom fighters out there that, you know, showed up at all the rallies and showed up to all the hearings and, and what, whatever they could to like champion this. And for us as artists, you know, it's like putting it on the platform with song, talking to people at our, at our shows, whether they were small, like the whiskey or something like the Palladium or festival setting, you know, constantly driving, being unapologetic about it. I mean, you know, I can't tell you how many stages I've gotten on and lit one in advocacy of and, you know, taking it.
- [25:44]
Josh Adam Myers
Saturday Night Live. Come on, dude. Saturday Night Live, I mean, y. Y' all are one of the few bands that's like a badge of honor. You Rage, the Replacements, Elvis Costello. I mean, they said. You did say too. Oh, Sinead o'. Connor. Just mugs lighting that joint. That's one of the illest shits I've ever seen. That's cold, dude.
- [26:05]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah. You know, the thing with, with Saturday Night Live is, you know, we, we had totally planned to smoke weed on Saturday Night Live. That was like a plan. But we were going to do it at the very end of the, of the show, at the very end of the set. We were going to destroy our set like the who used to. Big who fans. So we pay attention to all this in Cypress Hill. We were very different in terms of, you know, we were a hip hop group with a metal mentality and a punk rock attitude. And so we were getting ready to destroy our set. And then at the end, like after sex or something, we were gonna blaze up our joints, calm the nerve, right? But what happened was somebody either from a record label or Saturday Night Live, one of the two could have been a record label, was, was harping at mugs. Hey, you guys can't smoke weed. You Guys, please don't smoke weed. Don't smoke weed. You cannot smoke weed. And mugs is, is a guy that, you know you can't tell him what he can't do. And then if you, and then if you like tell him more than a few times, he's gonna do exactly what you're telling him that he can't or not to do. So he kind of like, you know, he, he broke out the joint in the beginning of the song. It was supposed to be at the end, but that's because they wouldn't leave him. If they had just shut the up, they wouldn't have seen that joint to the very end. They probably could have edited out. But look, they never edited it out. It stays on rotation in terms of their syndicate plays. They never edit the weed out. They, they didn't take our episode out of the. The archive rotation. It's still there.
- [27:57]
Josh Adam Myers
There's Sharon Doherty, dude. Rest in peace. The boo.
- [28:03]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Dude, she was great. She was great and she was so cool to us. And it was one of the most memorable, memorable moments for us in terms of, of all the platforms we've been on. That was. I mean, because we love Saturday Night Live. At least I do. I had loved it as a kid. I still watch it today, so.
- [28:23]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [28:24]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
You know, to be able to get banned from it, that was awesome.
- [28:28]
Josh Adam Myers
It's a badge of honor. Dude. It is a bad.
- [28:30]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Don't ask me back. Cause I'll just do it again.
- [28:34]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, dude, this time they'll be like, oh, it's fine. Yeah, yeah. Do you want us to bring you. Do you need papers?
- [28:41]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Look after. After we came on some years later, they had a bunch of cannabis stu driven sketches and stuff like that. So I think they got okay with it and the world is more okay with it than they used to be. It's not taboo anymore. More people are, you know, doing their homework on cannabis, whether they smoke or they don't smoke or they're new smokers or avid smokers like myself, who are continuing to learn new things in the culture, new technology coming and the, all the benefits to, to, you know, using cannabis in all of its forms, from medicinal to, to everything. So, you know, we're all still learning.
- [29:23]
Josh Adam Myers
We are. And, and I feel like not just, you know, you with you guys, but even this record is, is a small part of moving everything forward. So. So to dive into the chronic. So you guys, you dropped your first record in 91.
- [29:36]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Right? Right.
- [29:37]
Josh Adam Myers
You dropped the opening record. You were around in the 80s, obviously you were working on stuff like. And when I mentioned earlier about your sound, it's like Mugs had that, like I said Public Enemy in your face beats and with your voice and Send Dog and everything. You know, before you got Bobo on, like, how did you feel about hearing something like the Chronic? And, and you know, did this, did this record really influence the west coast scene, like, to what it would be basically today? Like, what was that like hearing the Chronic for the first time? Because obviously you probably all kind of.
- [30:10]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Knew each other well for, for like, for me to, to start where you started right there. Yeah, we were big, big, big fans of, of Public Enemy. I. I would say, you know, it goes Run dmc. You know who was the spark for us then? Public Enemy. And, and Public Enemy was huge to us because the style of production was so different than everything else in hip hop at the time. And I think to. To bring it around, Dr. Dre and. And D.J. muggs were very huge fans of, of and inspired by the Bomb Squad. Because, you know, Dre, if you listen to the first album, you know, with nwa, I should say it's all kinds of breaks and, and musical journeys within one song. Because it's much like the Bomb Squad because again, no one was doing breaks and bridges and wild ass sounds before they came. It was all pretty much a simple structure and they add so much complexity and dynamics to their production that it influenced Dre and it also influenced Muggs and, you know, Mugs was, you know, on our first album, trying to do something completely different than them, but in the vein of with the breaks, bridges, wild Chaot sound and shit like that. We did not know that it was gonna, you know, resonate with people the way that it did. But we were trying to not emulate Public Enemy, but be our. Our own Cypress Hill, but inspired by them. So my voice was high pitched like Flav, but I ran the lead, right. As opposed to it the way that Chuck ran the lead in Public Enemy, right? So we just sort of flip voices as leads and backups and Hype Man. So Said Dog becomes, you know, the flavor in our group, but with more rhymes, you know, it's like 1 in 2 mcs, not just one with the hype man, right? And so we put our stamp down and we influenced a certain culture coming into hardcore hip hop because I believe we were more underground and hardcore at that point, right? So flip into the Chronic. Dre changes up his style a little bit. Instead of it being like, let's just say the way that the NWA first album was where it's more hip hop ish, with all these crazy different samples. He starts utilizing more funk and more soul and in R B style stuff. And there's some dark in there too, but it's less bomb squadish and more drayish. And I think people heard this the way. The way that he put all that together. Some of the samples that they replayed instead of sampling it made it seem so much bigger. I mean, put a stamp on his own sound and then caused a ripple effect with a lot of producers who already influenced by Dre, like, oh, shit, I need to do it like that. And yeah, then you start hearing more of a West coast style sound because, like, if you. If you listen to all the. The early hip hop that came from Los Angeles or Southern California and it emulated New York hip hop for. For a time, then guys like Dre. Well, absolutely, Dre. Dre starts hitting with a different style of. Of production that's not so east coast ish. It seemed more drayish, and that got labeled West Coast. And then you start hearing like, guys like DJ Quick coming out banging funk, you know what I'm saying? And styles like that, and it becomes a West coast sound, you know, Dre was definitely the catalyst of it, that is for sure, with the Chronic. Because when you listen to that album and compare it to other Dr. Dre produced albums previously, you're going to hear some of that West Coast, I mean, east coast emulation in those previous songs. Whereas when he hits the Chronic and everything after, it's not that. It's its own thing. His own tap on funk and hip hop being sort of co Commingled together. And it was brilliant, man. I mean, you know, he was doing some things that no one could predict. I mean, everybody loved Dre. So when he came out with that Chronic, it was like the perfect timing because now the weed was being accepted. He saw what we were doing and he knew he could push the line on the. The cannabis a little bit. And, you know, I thought the zigzag cover style shit was lights out. I mean, it's one of my favorite hip hop albums of all time. I got to tell you, everybody did their thing as a squad, as a unit to step up, listen to, work with a guy like Dre. Let me just tell you, anyone that's in that studio has pressure because you have to impress him. You could go work with Dre all day. You could do an album worth of songs. If he's not feeling it, you will not be on that song, no matter what your name is and what your status is. If he does not feel it, he will peel you the off. And if it's a. And if. And if it's a whole album and he ain't feeling the album, if he doesn't say to himself, yo, this. This could go. If he's even, what, one Doubt. Nope. Boom. Put it on the shelf. Let's go on to the next. So, yeah, it's a lot of pressure as a. As a writer, as an emcee, to go work with Dre, because you don't know if your work's gonna come out. But, you know, I always looked at it, like, whether or not, you know, any of the stuff I do with him comes out, I always look at it as being in the room with them and getting it. Getting the experience on how he puts things together, working the magic. So I had a chance to do that, not necessarily on the Chronic. I had a chance to do it on his. On the album after. But, you know, to hear the Chronic and where he went with that and the impact that it had, you know, it. It was amazing. And then to get invited on the next record was. Was. You know, that was dear to my heart because, you know, like, people had said that. That our. Our had influenced him a little bit, you know, like that Dre and Mugs kind of were sort of influencing each other for a heartbeat. And that meant he was listening to us and. And when he was calling me for, you know, to do certain features in certain songs or just to play me some, I. You know, like that. That. That was. That. That's like a. That's like a.
- [37:36]
Josh Adam Myers
Getting asked to join Miles Davis Quintet, you get to play with one of the greats. Yeah, it's like that.
- [37:41]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
It's. He's. He's. That. He's like the Quincy Jones. For us. So to get asked by, you know, our Quincy. Dr. Dre.
- [37:49]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [37:50]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I mean, you know, that just meant I was doing my thing, so. So, you know, salute to Dre. But, yeah, I mean, the.
- [37:57]
Josh Adam Myers
And.
- [37:57]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And. And. And. And the thing was, too, with the Chronic, is it. It broke Snoop Dogg out onto the world in a way that like. Like, they had heard Deep Cover.
- [38:11]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [38:11]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
But when they heard him on the Chronic, man, you knew he was going to be a great. Did you.
- [38:19]
Josh Adam Myers
Did you know about him beforehand? Not to cut you off, but did you know about him?
- [38:22]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Was.
- [38:22]
Josh Adam Myers
Was there. You said Deep Cover, which I remember from the. From that soundtrack, and. Which is a great song, but, I mean. And everything you just said led into why Snoop Dogg is on almost everything. And I had read that he just hung out in the studio for every moment. So anytime he was even just. Just like the. Like a pubic hair of a beat, he'd be like, oh, let me put this on it. And like you said, he dropped. Great. Did you know about him beforehand being in LA or like. Like, how. Because, I mean, it's just. He came out of nowhere and just kicked everybody in the dick. And then you got doggy style. And he's the biggest in On. On MTV at that moment.
- [38:57]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Well, he was. He was. He. He had a group with Warren G and Nate Doggy, you know, and Warren G, being Dre's stepbrother, you know, he was always closely tapped in. And I think, you know, Warren made the introduction, and Snoop stayed at the ready ever since that part. Like, after that introduction, Snoop stayed fucking ready, and he stepped up to the moment. And again, you know, that. That showed you his greatness on. On. On how he was going to. Going to be a big name in this thing. Because a lot of guys crumble in that moment because you're with one of the titans, you got to impress them. And you gotta, you know, get past the pressure of that. Oh, I gotta do something significant because I'm with Dre. Some people tend to overdo it and ask themselves out, or some people underperform, and some people are impatient and can't wait for the stamp. But Snoop, again, he. He stepped up at the right time and hit home runs out of the park through that whole album and, you know, showed everybody that he was the new guy in town and he was gonna. And he made a name for himself and he's. You know, he did some of his greatest work on that first.
- [40:25]
Josh Adam Myers
He really did, man. He really did just even, like. Because I want to get. I want to talk about a few of the tracks on here. And let's talk about the first one, not the intro. Let's talk about with Dre Day, which is Dre and Snoop Dogg. It's got the Atomic Dog, George Clinton. It's got. Not just Knee Deep by Funkadelic. It is. It is literally giving you that west coast of what we now consider the west coast vibe. That groove, which is so important. But also, this is like. This is like a diss track to open the record being like, yo. I mean, in the music video, it's about On Easy and, you know, the history. We're not going to get into it about Jerry, his manager, screwing over everybody in NWA besides Easy E. But Then it's just like people don't realize and there still are hip hop beefs, but it wasn't. There was something about the hip hop beefs in the 90s. I mean, we lost Tupac and Biggie, two of the greatest mcs of all time, you know, with. But there's like, you know, you think about it, it's like there's, there's basically with Death Row general had beef with so many other people. How does one make that go away like a beef? Or is it because, you know, you've.
- [41:33]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Have you, you've had me.
- [41:34]
Josh Adam Myers
Well, by the way, I was gonna say, did you get beef from the Beastie Boys from stealing Bobo from them? Because I saw.
- [41:40]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
No. Yeah, I think they were glad we stole them. He was, he was, he was, he was out of his mind. And I think they were glad we took him off there. He was partying way too much. They were in Zen mode, you know, they were in beastie Zen mode at this point. Well, yeah, we were, we were being the extension of them. We were partying and being wild. And Bobo, like, he would go on tour with us when they weren't on tour and then he'd flip. Go on tour with them when we were on a break. And every time he'd go back with them, he was more wild because he'd been hanging with us. And just, you know, I don't, you know, I don't think they wanted to get rid of him, but they were like, okay, at least he went to Cyprus and. And he's more suited to be with them right now because he was in party mode. You know what I mean? It, like enjoying life and being on the road and just doing wild. Yeah, that's what I could say about that. What was the other part?
- [42:41]
Josh Adam Myers
No, the other question is like, you know, because there's so many. Like sometimes it feels like the beefs are almost like manufactured by management and by the industry. Not all of them. I'm just saying, like the way like.
- [42:53]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
The role these days.
- [42:55]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [42:56]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Like it.
- [42:56]
Josh Adam Myers
Of course, it's like. But I mean, obviously in our time, like some of these beefs were legit, like either gang related or from lyrics. Like, you know, we're like, like, like how did these beefs end besides like being murdered? Is it, is it, you know, as those two, what we talked about, you know, were you in any beefs and did they, did they have to ease back and, and you know, I know that you, you've, you know, you've had a storied history and you guys don't bite your tongue. So. Yeah, have any of. Go ahead, you tell me.
- [43:26]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Well, well, you know, like, looking at the way they started the album with. With just going off. I mean, they dis Ice Cube on this album. Uncle Luke, they were going for the head and they were saying, you know, to everyone else out there, this was like, welcome to the West Coast. This is us. Because, I mean, you know, even with Cyprus, we weren't necessarily a West coast style group. Our music wasn't that chronic. Was that like. Yeah, that. That. That's like the. If you. If you need any indication on what it is, go to that album. And at the time, this. That was the vibe out here, you know, and, you know, in terms of the beef, you know, Snoop Dogg was, you know, newly signed with Dre. So he may. He may have looked up to Easy and looked up to Cube and maybe. Maybe liked Luke, you know, like, because we all with Uncle Luke. But when you ride with someone who puts you on, you sort of like, take up their side, even though you might not have a problem with any of these people. You know what I mean? And, you know, with Dre, he had this ongoing shit with these guys. So they were going to go at everybody because he had the squad, proficient MCs and rappers and writers, you know, with. With Snoop, Rage, Corrupt Daz and the rest of the squad. I mean, they just. They could, you know, if they. If they all just wanted to, like, you know, squat up and diss people, they. They had it in spades, you know what I mean? Everybody was like a killer on that mic. So they decided to do that. They were gonna let folks know that we still got issues and y', all, you know, and I love that. You know what I mean?
- [45:29]
Josh Adam Myers
And.
- [45:29]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And we've, you know, I'm glad that they all sorted. Some of them sorted this out because, you know, we don't ever want it to end in violence. You know, that's the dumbest ever. I mean, it's music, but some of us come from that place where it's like the people we roll with and where we come from and, And. And where some of us are from, if you know what I mean. You know, you want it to stay musical, but sometimes it gets serious depending on where you come from and. And who's rolling with you. It's not always the person that the actual beef happens with that something, you know, ridiculously up happens. It's usually people that ride with you that, you know, will not take the disrespect you know, on your behalf. And so shit like that happens, especially if you come from gang ties, you know, like some of us do. Those, those, those disses, those, those beeps sometimes tend to get more serious because it's people from different neighborhoods. And it might clash now if neither of them are from a gang background or, or a street background. Fortunately, it stays music and either the beef ends or, you know, just by with time or they talk it out. And I, and I've seen that we've seen plenty of, of guys that were beefing in the last few years. You know, it got to the height. Some people got killed, rest in peace to them. And then, you know, others were managed to like squash their beefs and actually work together at the end, which is what it should be, right? And in terms of our beefs, we had beefs with a number of people. I think the first one started with a lighter shade of brown. It wasn't serious serious, but you know, we felt like they had taken something that we created and made something out of it from a tour that we did with them where they were supporting us. And we felt crazy about that because we were going to use that piece for a song. And so we went at them, you know, they came back at us and we just maintained to like, you know, hit them every night with this particular song and whatnot. But it never got serious. And you know, we wanted to like squash that because, you know, they're Latino, we're Latinos, we shouldn't be beefing with each other. But we felt some sort of way at the time. And we were wild and reckless and took everything as an offense to us. We were very angry young men. And, and you're high, which is nice.
- [48:22]
Josh Adam Myers
Because you should just be like, like.
- [48:23]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
It wasn't really a beef. Yeah, the other thing was with, with Chub Rock, he, he, he says something in a song called Yabba Dabba Doo where it seemed like he was, you know, taking a crack at, at me and you know, my lyrical style and, and whatnot. And he was against, very much against the gangster and violent and drug driven music and hip hop. And I think we were that to him maybe, but we were fans of Chub Rock but like you know, Insane in the Brain was, was, was a shot to him. The first few lines were a shot to him, you know, to, to go back to the shot he gave to me. There was never a beef there. We never like had words over it so that, you know, that just never went anywhere and we've never discussed it or we haven't even seen each other since the 90s, to be honest. So I don't know where it went in his head, but, you know, we served him with our. Our little back. And there was no back and forth after that, so we just left it alone. But the beef, the serious beef that we had was with Ice Cube, you know, and that went on for the course of maybe three years. And we were dissing each other back and forth. You know, we came out with the song no Rest for the Wicked, dissing him for. For taking a. Taking a piece of our chorus and flipping around and using it. Then he comes back and disses us with King of the Hill, which was a pretty good disc song. Yeah, I think they were both really good. And then he made another one. Yeah, and then we made one that was like more on the underground circuit. We didn't. We didn't put it out commercially, but we gave it to DJs and stuff like that. It's called Ice Cube Killer. And, you know, that beef got kind of serious, you know, because we, you know, on both ends, we have serious people that ride for us. And, you know, I think both of us, as grown ass men, knew that at some point our camps were gonna clash somewhere. And, you know, we both care about our people. And, you know, to be honest, he was a good friend of mine for, for a time. And he embraced me as. As a brother, you know, went to his wedding, the whole. The whole deal and hung out with him. And, you know, like, we've hung out. So, you know, it was. It pained me. And, and, you know, he was an inspiration to me. He was one of the guys I looked up to. You know what I mean? That I have to be on that level as an emcee, as a writer, as a. As doing what I do in Cypress Hill. Right? Public Enemy was one influence. Ice Cube, to me, as an emcee, was another. So it kind of pained me to be in this. This beef with them. But also, we're both Geminis and we don't back down. So it was. It was very interesting how we were going back and forth and it got very serious. And fortunately, Mac 10 was the one who called me and, and, and to, To. To reiterate what I was saying about how Snoop, when he got signed to Dre, he may not have had beef with Easy E or Cube or Luke, but he rode with Dre on him in solidarity and saying, I got your back. You put me on, I got your back. And Mac 10 did the same thing because, you know, Mac 10 joined that disc with. With Cube, and we didn't even know each other. And then he called me and he goes, hey, man, you know, let me just say this. I'm a fan of you guys, and I didn't want to be dissing you, but I rode with him and. And I had to ride the line. I said, hey, you don't even got to explain it. We are. We are cool. But he was the one that brokered, like, the conversation to squash our beef. And he, you know, he jumped on a call with me, we had talked out our issues, and then he had Cube call me and we had a conversation squashed our. January 1, 1997.
- [52:42]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh.
- [52:43]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And from that time on, we've managed to, you know, work together on certain songs, features on other. Other people. I think Shaq Rules put us on our first song together after the beef with Men of Steel, then Warren G and then somebody else. And then eventually, you know, we, you know, go on to work this year together on his album that just came out, man Down. And then we had been doing a number of tours together, so. And. And after that, what was significant was that after the beef was squashed, he had a show here in la and he asked me to come down to get on stage with him to show that we are no longer beefing. Right?
- [53:28]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [53:28]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
So I show up, and I didn't bring anybody with me. I came solo, proper solo, no bodyguards, no friends, no entourage. Came solo. And, you know, it was at a venue where I know all the security and. And I know the owners and we're, you know, friends and stuff like that. So, you know, I walked through the door and like, hey, what are you doing here? I'm like, I came to see the big guy. And they're looking at me like, what? Because they don't know the beef is done, but they know about it. And as I start walking through, other people start seeing me like, they're like, oh, where's your people's at? You know, because I'm like, by myself. And they're like, oh, my God, this is crazy. And. But nobody knew, you know, that was the beauty of it. So they thought I had the audacity just to walk in the place alone. And, you know, it made for a great night because when I got on stage with Cube, when Cube announced me to get on stage, and people saw me up there with him, they went nuts, you know, like, finally this ass beef is over. We love both these guys that. And, you know, it was. It was an Amazing moment. Moment. I'll never forget it. And. And that's the way the beefs should end.
- [54:50]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [54:51]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Not in gunshots. One motherfucker's in the coffin and the other one's hiding out because now this guy, people want to get him. You know what I mean? That's. That's like men. We talked about it, and we build the bridge. And we've been still building that bridge from that time to now. Showing unity, you know what I mean? And. And that's what it's about. You could have a beef, but are you man enough to own your.
- [55:16]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [55:16]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And then squash it.
- [55:19]
Josh Adam Myers
Hey, everybody. So you guys have probably heard me talk about how I've been in bands my whole life. I love writing songs and performing in front of crowds. Just like with comedy. As a musician, it can be kind of hard to cut through the noise and really stand out as an artist. I feel like half the music projects I've been and have ended just because we couldn't figure out the answer to that eternal question of how do we get people to hear us. But then again, that was before there was Distrokid. Distrokid is a digital music distribution service that brings your sound to the masses. It's a one stop shop for getting your songs on itunes, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon, Deezer, Tidal, and many more.
- [55:59]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
What's Deezer?
- [55:59]
Josh Adam Myers
I never even heard of Deezer. How many of them are there? I know all that. That's like the holy grail of streaming services though, and getting paid. They want to. We want to get you paid for your music. That's huge because a lot of bands go broke before they get big. But Distrokid collects earnings and payments and sends 100% of these earnings to artists, minus banking fees and applicable taxes. And that's just one of the tons of benefits of using Distrokid. You can send big files to anyone with their Instant Share feature. You can use the Hyper Follow feature to promote your release and get pre saves on your song. You can even create personal landing pages for yourself, your band, your brand, and whatever you like. It has a free Spotify Canvas generator too, to generate your own Spotify Canvas for your songs. And the Mixia feature instantly masters your tracks for higher quality audio. So if you're ready to bring your band to the next level, it's time to check out Distrokid. The Distrokid app is now available on iOS and Android. Go to the app or Play Store to download it. Listeners of this show can get 30% off their first year by going to distrokid.com VIP the 500. That's distrokid.com VIP the500.500 for 30% off your first year.
- [57:26]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Dig it.
- [57:29]
Josh Adam Myers
Being that you guys. You and Ice Cube squash the beef, it's a perfect segue to get into Let Me Ride. I just want to talk about a couple more songs on this record. I mean, Let Me Ride is. Is the epitome of the George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic record.
- [57:44]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah, it is.
- [57:45]
Josh Adam Myers
It is great digging. It is P. Funk. It is everything. I mean, thoughts on this? I mean, before I get into the question, but, like, what's that like here and Let Me Ride for the first time? Especially that little.
- [57:58]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah. I mean, it's. It's. It's. You know, it's. It was nostalgia because a lot of us grew up to those records, even though they were slightly before our time. You know, our older brothers and sisters or, you know, parents maybe were listening to Parliament Funkadelic and so, you know, us as kids absorbing that. Now, hearing Dre's version of it bumping and, you know, representing, like, our lifestyle here, I mean, it was. It was great. And it's the perfect song to whip in your lowrider if you got a convertible one.
- [58:32]
Josh Adam Myers
Yes.
- [58:32]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
You could just. Yes. Tender in the video. But, yeah, you know, I mean, like, he. He. I mean, with this whole album, man, he gave a. A different sort of texture and context to. To what hip hop was on the. On the west coast and gave it its own sound. And I don't know if he was even trying to do that or not. You know what I mean? I think he was just trying to put out the best. Best album that he could put out as a whole. And, you know, to you, probably, if you asked him, did you. Did you think that that album would become what is known as the west coast sound? He'd probably tell you no, because, like, that's not something he even thought about. But that was, you know, one of the things that, like, carved out what the west coast has become in terms of production wise, you know, using funk, you know, on a lot of. On a lot of the samples. Because, I mean, that's. That's what a lot of west coast hip hop artists did was they. They gravitated to the funk samples. Some soul samples, some jazz, but a lot of funk.
- [59:44]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [59:45]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And, you know, so with Dre hits, with that on Let Me Ride, I mean, that is, like, just taking us back and. And, you know, putting us in the Seat with our older siblings bumping the original song and, you know. You know, filling that. That kind of vibe. But now you got, you know, Dre on it, killing the rhymes. Whoever was the writer for that, like, gave him the perfect verses for that, and it was just, you know, it's iconic.
- [60:17]
Josh Adam Myers
It is iconic, and it's like, the whole.
- [60:19]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah, it's.
- [60:20]
Josh Adam Myers
What's so funny is that literally his last record that he did with NWA I think, was 91. It was the second record. And it sounds nothing like this.
- [60:30]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
This is, like.
- [60:30]
Josh Adam Myers
This is like, Beatles transition. This is like going from, like, Rubber Salt, like, you know, from Rubber Sole to Revolver in just, like, one year, which is really impressive. And it's. It's good.
- [60:44]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I. I imagine, like, I can't imagine, right, if NWA had stood together and you hear that production over them. Oh, wow.
- [60:54]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. I never thought.
- [60:56]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Arguably, they would have been. Arguably, you know, if it hits the way that the Chronic hit with the players that they had on it, they would have been, you know, arguably the greatest group of all time.
- [61:07]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [61:08]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
You know, if. If. If they had stood together and Dre evolves into what he evolved into by the time he got to the Chronic, but that didn't happen. But you're right. It was such a crazy transition in sound, and, you know, production style went away from samples, started having live players come in and then sampling the live players.
- [61:32]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [61:33]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Like, here, replay this. Okay, I'm gonna sample that. Boom. Oh, hey, play this. You know, having live players come in. And that is a part of why the. The. The. The sound of the album is so big, because it was actually live instrumentation and less samples. There's only so much you could do with the sample in terms of tweaking it and, you know, making it sound. Sound bumping. But when it's an organic instrument or. Or, you know, you're getting it. Getting the guy playing through his cabinet and through his. Through his head or through his stacks, and then miking that. That's way different than sampling it from a record. You can only tweak it so much when you sample it, and you don't.
- [62:21]
Josh Adam Myers
Have to pay for the math.
- [62:24]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And the publishing that you actually have to give up. You know, when you work an interpolation, it's. It's. You still have to pay for that interpolation. So anything that Dre did, you know, that was like. Let's just say Parliament Funkadelic. He did an interpolation of it. He might have had to pay a little bit, but it's not the Same as paying for that sample where you're giving up maybe all your publishing, depending. I mean, George Clinton was very cool with Dre and. And Ice Cube and those guys. So they probably, you know, who knows, maybe they didn't pay anything for those samples because, you know, it helped George. It helped George a lot.
- [63:03]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [63:03]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And I think they did pay for some, but not what others had to pay. And, you know, that was great that George allowed them to use it, because, I mean, we wouldn't have the Chronic as it is without some of those works. And Dre, like, having the ear to know that I could hear Snoop over this, or I could hear Dazzling Corrupt over this, or I could hear RBX or Lady of Rage or, you know, that. To have that ear with. With that kind of knowledge of. Of this catalog, that is crazy. And, you know, that's why he's one of the greatest producers ever, ever, ever.
- [63:42]
Josh Adam Myers
And I want to talk about the idea of. Of letting me ride as well, which is like. You worked with two of my very close friends, Brad Wilk and Tom Murillo, with Profits of Rage. I was lucky enough to see you guys at the Forum. It was energetically, I mean, and then I saw all five nights of Rage's last five shows at Madison Square Garden, dude, you and Chuck and. And the band literally doing your songs, doing Public Enemy songs, doing Rage songs, and. And like controlling the crowd exactly the way that Rage did early on. And it made sense. And even bringing up this record as well, because a lot of the kids don't realize it. I mean, the tension is high now, but when this record came out, that's after Rodney King, that's after the LA riots. I think it's right before O.J. or like right around the exact same time the O.J. trial is probably about to start, is when you. So. So just a two part question is one, like. Because I know you've probably been asked this during that time, but I'm such a huge fan, and I never figured it out. It was like, did it start off where it was just you with them or Chuck with them and then you showed up or he showed up, or was it just a collaboration? Y' all were smoking or just talking one time and then that happened. And then the other question is, did the kids that, you know, because you guys were saying real all between all three of your respective groups is like, the kids now just like, do you think they just understood that of. Of what was actually being said, or was it just. They're just behind the music. It's like, you know, it's. It's. It's literally. I know the message doesn't go away.
- [65:19]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah.
- [65:19]
Josh Adam Myers
But you just get caught up. I mean, the old speaker of the House was like, I used to work out to Rage against the Machine. You're like, you're one of the most. You're the machine face.
- [65:30]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah, yeah, that. That was the funny part. The way that it happened was I got a call from Tom, and he said, hey, I'm putting this thing together, and Chuck D is involved, and we want to see if. If you'd want to do something. I already knew it was coming. I had an inside connection that called me and said, hey, I think. I think Tom Morello is going to call you for a project. And I'm like, yeah, right. Because, you know, we. You know, I'd been friends. I had been friends with Tom and those guys for a very long time. I'm in their first video, right? I showed up to their video. I was on a date with this chick that I had been dating for a while. She said, I'm gonna take you to see this new band. I'm like, all right, let's go. That band happened to be Rage against the Machine. I was in the mosh pit, and they saw me in the mosh pit. They're like, oh, we gotta be real here. They pulled me on stage and we do an impromptu thing. And, you know, that was. That was like our bridge that we built then there, right? So we eventually go on tour together. We bring them on tour. I tell my manager, hey, there's this group, Rage against the Machine. We got to take them on tour, all that stuff. So we become friends and all this stuff. So fast forward, after they break up the first time, you know, I don't know if I hit them up or they. They hit me up. But I. I told them in that time, I said, hey, look, I don't know if you still got shows happening that you have to fulfill, but if you do, I can come in and fulfill those. I fill those shows. And they didn't. They didn't have anything at the time, but they were, like, open to maybe jam out and see what would happen. And, you know that we had that first conversation that was years back, and nothing ever panned out from that. They end up making Audio Slave, right? Then after Audio Slave goes away, after some, you know, a couple years or a year or two, I think it was finishing as it was starting. It was the craziest. It's a weird story. Weird story. But Interesting enough. Anyway, fast forward to now. We're in 2016 or something like that, and the political starts getting really crazy. Yeah. And I get a call from Tom and you know, saying, hey, I'm gonna put something together. Chuck D's involved. Would you like to be involved? But he didn't know that somebody in his squad was close to me and called me and said, hey, they're gonna call you. So I had already said yes before he even called. I was thinking yes. And I see my call. It's Morello. I'm like, yo. And he says, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah. I got a idea. But it's. I'm gonna put together this group. You want to do something? We're gonna. We want to play a show for all these times. And I, without hesitation, yeah, let's do it. And you know, because we all thought it sounded great on paper, you know, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk, Timmy C, DJ Lord, Chuck D, and myself, you know, we thought, man, that sounds great on paper. And we got into the first rehearsals and it was a little shaky. A little shaky because we were like, what are we going to do here? What. What exactly are we gonna do? Then we all started doing our homework and. And it became something. And. And we played our first shows at the Whiskey with Prophets of Rage and blew it up. And it went from playing that one show in the name of like, you know, driving people to the polls and driving people to be aware of what the is going on, it went from, hey, we got a chemistry. We should like, maybe work this out. And so we started making records and then we went on tour and Chuck and I were able to like, do Zach songs sometimes flip them back and forth. Sometimes he led one and I backed up, and sometimes I led one and he backed up. And we found a good combination of representing Rage against the Machine songs. And at first, when, you know, when we went out on tour, because we knew la, we were gonna, you know, get love because we're all from, well, Rage against the Machine and. And Cypress Hill are from la, so we're gonna get that love.
- [70:12]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah.
- [70:12]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And then adding Chuck D, who people love, we knew we were going to get love there. It was everywhere else. And, you know, on the first show, we knew we had a lot of those Rage against the Machine fans that if Zach ain't there, they're like, what the is this? But they're going to. To see, right? And at the end, you know, they're gonna either on it or they're gonna get behind it. And at first, I think a lot of people intended to on us. And then, you know, when Chuck and I, you know, went and delivered Zach songs like, you know, in the style of which he. He did them and not like on some laid back rap. It impressed people and we started winning people over. And, you know, eventually we turned some of those Rage against the Machine fans into profits of Rage fans. And I think, you know, we were on a great run. I gotta say. It was. It was awesome. And to speak to the. To the fan part on what you asked, like, how they received it, I think it was a combination. I think some people were hearing the lyrics because at that time, and even now, Rage against the Machine lyrics are very relevant to what is happening. Some Cypress Hill songs, definitely. And definitely. And we were playing a combination of all those things. So people were listening and. And putting up that fist in the name of what we were doing. And then there was other people that were just there, like, to, you know, because they love the music and they're not necessarily politically driven like that, but they want to go and represent and have a good time and have this experience because we were giving people an experience. I mean, you know, they had three different catalogs that. That we were flipping through. And then, you know, our own music as Prophets of Rage and that. I think, yeah, we were doing some really good work. And then certain people got threatened and it stopped.
- [72:17]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, well, because I don't. I. I don't know, like, I don't know how it ended. I. I do know, like, eventually they went on and like, look, it's like, it's when you write music and you're in a group like Rage Against a Machine and you're that political, you know, even I didn't even realize when I was at that fifth show at Madison Square Garden that I was probably seeing the last Madison, last Rage against the Machine concert, possibly ever. And because I know just with. With being in bands, it's like. Of how things go and how they break up, connect and this and the other thing, to get the, like six of you guys, including the dj. It was one of the things, especially at the time, like when we needed all of y'.
- [72:59]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
All.
- [72:59]
Josh Adam Myers
That was when you guys came out in. Prophets of Rage was literally what we needed to expel that energy and to raise awareness, like you said. And I also thought it was.
- [73:09]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Go ahead. I think we need it again. I mean, if. If. If Rage ain't gonna do it, someone has to.
- [73:16]
Josh Adam Myers
100.
- [73:18]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah. And I'll say this, you know. You know, we Just finished this tour up with Atmosphere, and we've done a few festival gigs before and after that, and we've been playing Rage against the Machine songs. Really. We feel that people need to hear them. So, like, we'll cover a Rage song. We, like, we've been covering Bombtrack as of late.
- [73:38]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, yeah, dude. But also, let's not forget, they on Renegades, they covered How I Could Just Kill a Man. So what did you think of that, by the way?
- [73:48]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. That was awesome. And salute to the guys for doing that, because that was. That was brilliant. And so when we play with our band, like, when we play Take our. Our band out with us, we cover that song.
- [74:04]
Josh Adam Myers
Really?
- [74:07]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
We covered the COVID version. I love that.
- [74:11]
Josh Adam Myers
All right, for timing, man, let's just dive into the big song on this record, man. You know, and. And. And, dude, by the way, I'm just saying, like, I've. Like, this is an anthem. The same way that something like How I Could Just Kill a Man, Hits from the Bong, you know, Rock Star, all the. All this. It's. It's just like, you get. You get only a couple of these, or sometimes just one time, you'll get a song like this. Like, nothing but a G thing in your life. And I mean, it's like. Like Ice Cube. Like, Ice Cube got. You know, today was a good day. Everybody gets one. You guys are lucky enough that you've had multiple. And we'll talk about that. But Nothing But A G thing is everything we've talked about. It is the. It is the.
- [74:50]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
The G funk.
- [74:51]
Josh Adam Myers
It is Warren G. I mean, it is. It is. It is basically what brought Snoop, you know, to. To just as one of the coolest people in the 90s of hip hop. It's. It's got. It's got Dre do some of his best lyrics. But this is, like, also around the time that Snoop had gotten arrested for attempted murder. And he's in jail, he's pending trial, but while he's there, he's, like, working on the lyrics for all these Dre tracks. This was originally wrapped over a prison phone call to Dre to show him what he wrote. I mean, thoughts on Nothing But a G Thing before I ask the question, because this is. This is such a timeless song that, you know, when you're talking about west coast hip hop and you're talking at least gangsta hip hop or whatever, I don't even know how you want to characterize, but we were talking. Everything we've talked about this is arguably like, if you looked in the dictionary, this is up there in the discussion of. Of one of the best west coast hip hop written songs of all time. Opinions?
- [75:51]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Thoughts? Absolutely. I, I 100 agree with that. It. You could not go anywhere without hearing that song here on the, on the West Coast.
- [76:04]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh yeah.
- [76:05]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I don't know what it was like anywhere else, but out here, anyone with a system was just bumping that down the block whenever it came on or if they had the CD that was on rotation because it's such a dope song. I mean, they all did their thing on it. And I mean, you know, everybody was singing that goddamn chorus.
- [76:30]
Josh Adam Myers
It was in Maryland, dude. It was in Maryland too, man. It was in D.C. this was being played. And I know you keep talking about the East Coast west coast beef, but it's like the same way Big Papa was hitting the West Coast. I know. And it's like, dude, a good song is a good song song, and whether there's beef or not. And I, I can imagine like, like some of the, The New York MCs being like, yo, this. You can't deny that this vibes. And it's. It is. It's perfect to have a beer to. To have a 42. It's perfect to smoke a blunt too. It's perfect to. To like. It is arguably things. It's all the things, dude.
- [77:05]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Hits all the marks of a great, timeless song.
- [77:11]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [77:12]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
You know, that will never get old people. You know, you could play it for young right now that never heard. They'll be like, damn, that is hard. Yeah, that's. That's the true meaning of. Of work that Transcends time, man. Dr. Dre Production and the pen work of, of, you know, Snoop Dogg and, And uh, the rest, man, you know, they were all on their game in a different way. And I think, you know, they were all inspired by, by how Snoop was stepping up to the plate on all this. Because, I mean, you know, without Snoop, I don't see that happening.
- [77:52]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, God, no, dude, it's. It's just. Even the. Even though, like, you know, falling back on that ass with a hell of five. I mean, it's all just so perfect. And this is also great, but it's also great about this song is like, this is one of those songs like I saw it at the Wu Tang concert. Like, this is one of the songs that the DJ can play and cut the vocals and see how many white kids say the N word. Like, it's like when they did Shame on It on an N word. It was like just the whole audience at Madison Square Garden is just still hitting in the Method Man's like, I heard y'. All. I know who said it.
- [78:24]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
But. But it's.
- [78:25]
Josh Adam Myers
But it's a hit and, you know it's a hit, you know, which. Which leads me to my question, which is like, you know, because Cypress Hill and I want to talk about what was this? I mean, I would say it was insane in the brain that that was the song. Like, when you were writing that, did you know a second that you were doing it? Because it's everything. What I love about that song is. Is B. Is that it literally is all the. All the groups that you were talking about that influenced you. It's got the Public Enemy sound, right? It's got that intense, like, that noise. It's got you going back and forth like Run dmc, you know, each. You and Sen both bringing some of your. Some of your. Your best lyrics, you know, and. And it's arguably. It's a rock song too. Like, you. Dude, I played that at the goddamn Comedy Jam, like, where comics do stand up and then they sing a cover song, I bet. So I've got a couple. Latino Frankie Quinones has done it. Sean Patton. Yeah, this is. This is a. Such a banger. Like, we've done it in front of like 1200 people, and they're moshing to it. When you guys were putting that song together. Because in the documentary I watched about you guys on Showtime, you guys don't really go over that as much as I was hoping. And you talk about the first record, which is the important record that broke you and how you guys got together. But Insane is literally that real crossover song that took you from the LA and the hip hop fans to. To white people. And I. I know that's crazy, but to get on MTV is a big deal. And that video was on rotation. So did you guys know the second it was done, you're like, oh, that's gonna be the one.
- [79:54]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Well, I want to thank you for one for mentioning that about it, not explaining that in the doc. I feel like in the doc, we missed a lot of gems that we could have dropped there, so we're gonna probably make another one long form and. And drop those kind of gems. But in. In relation to knowing, Hell no, I didn't know. I. You know, I knew we. I knew we had a good song. You know, like, it felt like something, right? It all locked in in a different way, but we felt that about all the songs you know, and we were like, when. When Sony mentioned it as, what about this is the single I remember. Like. And I could be honest about it. I'm like, what? Why that? Like, why not? Why not? We ain't going out? Or why not lick a shot or what? You know, because our theme was always to go harder, not lighter. And we felt like, out of all the songs, that was probably our most lightest song on the album. Not in terms of the way that it banged, I meant. I mean, in terms of, you know, we're very dark and angry, and that was the least of our angry songs. It seemed more like a party song, but it was actually a diss, you know, and so when. When they. When they chose it or when they suggested it, I should say I was like, I don't know about that. I think we got better songs. And they're like, please, let's go with this song. We could sell it. This is a great song. You're not hearing it the way we are. And, you know, I was still kind of like, learning the music industry at that point. I mean, we're on our second album and we've been doing nothing but touring. So, like, all the ins and outs and all that shit, I still wasn't totally locked into that yet. I was still trying to grasp all that. So I thought, well, they gotta know better than me. So it. If. If the guys are good with it, I'm good with it. And Mugs. I think he knew. Maybe he didn't say shit, but I think he knew that that was gonna be a big song. And he was like, yeah, go with that one. Because normally he would argue to. To what he actually wanted, and it would have went to that song because he was very adamant about, like, how he felt about what should go out. And when he agreed on that, that was everything. Because then they sold the. Out of that song. And. And I did not know it was gonna, you know, be that big. I really didn't. I didn't think that it would be what it became and what it is now besides.
- [82:32]
Josh Adam Myers
Besides, like, something like Juice, which. Because I. You know, I know the juice getting 90 seconds of.
- [82:37]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Of.
- [82:37]
Josh Adam Myers
Of a song in probably one of the biggest. You know, I don't call urban movies, but just, like, gangster. We've got Tupac, you got Omar EPPS, like, getting 90 seconds of a song in there, which is what turned the sales of that first record from being like, I think you'd sold in the docket, said 60,000 to where now you're selling that A week is like, how much did the change come? Because you were already doing Lollapalooza. You were already a part of the stratosphere. So it was. And you're touring and you're playing like, big shows, but how much did you see it was at the moment? You're like, oh, like, maybe I can go buy a Lexus right now. Like, like, did it just. Did it just be like, all right, yeah, like, was it. What was the moment where you knew.
- [83:18]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
When the Juice movie came out, we went to a screening and we saw that. That scene where Kill A Man pops up at the very end, right? And people were getting up out their seats and dancing to the song. And I was like, oh, you know, and, and we had heard that the song was getting mixed show rotation and stuff like that. And you know, like, because we didn't have any expectations. I mean, we, we, we charted at probably 175 on the, the Billboard charts, right? The top 200. And then, you know, within a few weeks, we fell right to off it. Then within six months, people start, you know, DJs start flipping the record. And instead of playing funky, Phil went in the mix. They were playing Killer, man. That started getting some heat and touched the ears of Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad, who were working on the Juice movie and thought, that's the perfect song for the end scene. They put that in there. As we're building momentum, then that movie comes out in the hip hop community, you know, hit in the hip hop community. So, boom. That just opened up the doors for us because everybody wanted to know that song. And then they got familiar with it because they had now been hearing it on the mix shows from the FM stations and the college stations and all that stuff. And yeah, it, it, that movie helped boost the song. And we went from, from being knocked off of the Billboard chart to climbing straight the. All the way up, up to number five, up to when right when we're releasing Black Sunday. So all that time, the two year, two and a half year process that we were working our first album to, and then we get to Black Sunday. When we released Black Sunday, we had so much momentum built from that first album in working Kill A Man and the rest of the songs that come out after that, that we had, we were probably the first hip hop group that had number one album and a number five album or an album, you know, at number one and another one in the, in the, in the top five or top ten at the same time. And that was because the momentum for it was Built up later. It didn't blow it first. It took like six months, and then it started building after that. Six months. That's why it's sort of locked in with. With the momentum of going into Black Sunday and having Insane be a significant enough song that was. Was that could follow up how I could just kill a Man. Because that was the thing. We had to follow that up.
- [86:06]
Josh Adam Myers
Sure.
- [86:07]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And Mugs was built for that. Totally built for it.
- [86:12]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, dude. And also, like, you guys are a part because it's being a Mugs, but you're. And I'm just gonna get to the final question I wanted to ask, which is. Which is like, you're a part of arguably, which I think is probably one of the most important and greatest movie soundtracks tracks of all time, which is the Judgment Night soundtrack. It's got. I mean, you. With our former guest Kim of Sonic Youth. She came on here. You doing I love you, Mary Jane. One of my favorite songs ever. Another Body Murdered by. With Faith no More and Booyah Tribe. The House of Pain. It's just another victim. I mean, this is literally taking some of the most popular hip hop artists with some of the most popular rock artists. Like, how did. Like, were you, Wendy, when you got asked? Obviously, because it feels like you're a rock fan regardless. So to be able to combine the two, I mean, it's. It must have been a gift, you know, and also, it's like. It's like the movie's good too. I don't give a. Anybody says Helio Esteban is a badass. I With that movie. But it's like, you know, just doing something like that. Did you guys realize how important that was? Because doing that in 93 basically, is what helped. And on top of Rage against the Machine, on top of Faith no More with Epic, like, that's. I mean, that's what gets you to, you know, to Limp Bizkit and so on and so forth down the line. We're combining these two things. And then eventually, you guys doing Rockstar, which is basically a heavy metal hip hop song. I mean, and you. And the Cypress Hill version of not saying that Mug's beats aren't rock and roll. So I don't want to come up because even though it's hip hop, it is a metal. It's rock and roll. But, like, tell me about that experience as well.
- [87:47]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Well, you know, before I knew what hip hop was, I was listening to all sorts of different genres of music, you know, what is considered classic rock to us in that time. Like, The Beatles and the Doors and Jimi Hendrix and like that. So I was listening to rock, but I was also listening to metal primarily like blacks. Well, not Black Sabbath, but Ozzy and AC DC and all that. But getting to the Black Sabbath stuff after, you know, I buy that first Aussie album, you know, he was. He was huge to me. So, yeah, you know, I think we all have that sort of thing in common where, you know, we all liked funk and jazz and punk and reggae and. And all that, but we also liked rock. And I know Mugs definitely listen to a lot of the classic rock and so did Send Dog. So it was just something that came natural to us, you know. So when it came down to production style and stuff that Mugs would sample, some of them had little elements of the things. And if you were a hip hop fan but knew other music, you could hear that and be like, oh, I know where that's from. And so it was those little things. So, you know, I think we snap into the rock and metal naturally because we were fans of it before we even knew what hip hop was, you know, and we found a way somewhere to. To. To mix that up. And when we get invited to do the Judgment Night soundtrack, it was our manager who was like one of the music supervisors there. And there's always an argument between who brought the idea, whether it was Mugs or Everlast, you know, or. Or our manager, our manager at the time who was happy Walters claimed the idea, but he. He did not have the idea. It was the. It was either. It was either Mugs or Everlast. Right. And we got, you know, we had the distinction of getting asked to do two tracks. One was with Pearl Jam and the other with Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth. We got to do. Be in the studio with them and. And do the song. And Mugs would cut their up and chop it up and sample it. And so. So there's. That is an actual true collaboration. Whereas Pearl Jam, they created their music in Seattle, sent the reels over to us and then send an eye drop our on it. So. But that was awesome to be able to with Pearl Jam because I mean, you know, we became friends with them and played Lollapalooza on the other stage while they were there. And that's how we connected. They eventually asked us to do Drop in the park with them. And so we always had a connection with them. So it made sense. And yes, that that album is groundbreaking. Some people say the album is better than the movie, which 100.
- [90:49]
Josh Adam Myers
I didn't know if you liked the movie or not? But, I mean, I didn't mind the movie. I saw it in the theater.
- [90:54]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Was it the greatest movie? Probably not, but it was. It was decent. You know, there was great actors in there. And, you know, my bro ever last got an acting role in that. So, you know, and. And if I. You know, if I think about it, it probably was him that came up with the idea because he was actually in the movie, you know, with. He was the. The reason that, like, our. Our. Our manager was talking to those people and became the music supervisor, because they were asking Everlast to be in that movie. So it probably was him. But, yeah, I mean, you know, like, I don't think any of us knew that that was gonna create a sub genre that would go on to flourish in the way that it has.
- [91:40]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah. Well, also. But this is the thing. I love that you said it felt like it was a collaboration, because some of the songs on there don't feel like collaborations. Nothing against which I'm not. I'm not on. I love almost every song on there. But the Helmet, House of Pain, it just sounds like Helmet wrote the first part, and then. And then House of Pain just did the second part. The Booyah Tribe, Faith no More one. It feels like there's a little bit of a collaboration, but yours definitely feels like two people or two groups working together. And speaking of Everlast, too, is. Is like. You know, Mugs produced Jump around, right? Like, did. Were you pissed when that song went to them?
- [92:19]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I was one of the first to get it. And the thing was, I had it for a couple months, and I could not come up with anything for it. It was like the first time that I had writer's block to a song that good. You know, the thing is, is. Is when Mugs gives it to me, unless he has a specific idea, I'm crafting it on my own in terms of the writing. And when he gave it to me, he hadn't had the jump idea yet.
- [92:49]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah.
- [92:50]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And apparently, you know, when he. When I. I told him, I said, hey, look, I can't. I gave the beat back. I said, hey, I don't know what the going on, but I can't come up to anything for this, so maybe you should give it to Everlast. And he was like, yeah. And I said, yeah, give it to him. I think he could. He could kill this. And I didn't know he was gonna listen to me. I thought he was gonna give it to Sun Doobie or give it to somebody else. Gave it to Everlast, and when he gave it to Everlasting, he had that jump idea. And then Everlast took the idea and created his around it, and that's boom. That's the story. So it was. It was meant to be. You know, I don't kick, like, for me, I was never, like, resentful of it because that was just, you know, I think we were a clique at that point. So I felt that if we got a hit, they got a hit, then Dubious got the hit. We are a massive click to deal with. Rather than just one group has all the hits and the other ones are like, you know, doing okay. We were very significant together when we all had something out there that was, you know, hidden. So for me, I just thought, you know, I didn't miss an opportunity. That was his opportunity in disguise, you know what I'm saying? And when it went to him, he delivered just like we talked about Snoop Dogg delivering on Andre's on that platform. Mugs was on a roll then, like, you know, creating the sounds.
- [94:30]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, he was. By producing beats like crazy. I can imagine. Because once you get that groove in, you're like. You hear it just. Just the output. He had so much. He was. He had to give it to somebody.
- [94:40]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah. And. And, you know, hey, kudos to my brother, one of my best friends in the world, Everlast, who stepped the up to the moment and created to me one of the, if not the most impactful hip hop songs in terms of crowd reaction of all time, all time. I played this song, you know, with Prophets of Rage and seen it happen to metal crowds. Played it with Cypress Hill, Seen it happened to hip hop crowds. Watched House of Pain when they were out there as a group doing it. Flip the crowds. This is one of the most anybody could cover this song. If you put it at the end of your set and you do it right in the original form, it will pop off for anyone. That's the truth. You know what I mean? And my man everlasted that a DJ Bugs did that. This is one of the most iconic. It is pop songs. You can play it.
- [95:41]
Josh Adam Myers
Dude, I completely agree with that. Like you, it's. I used to be a wedding and bar mitzvah dj, and I'd put that on and the rabbi would be out there. The old people, like, jump around. Here we go. We're jumping now. They're like, like, we got sciatic and they can't walk.
- [95:55]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
65 year olds with bad knees.
- [95:58]
Josh Adam Myers
Bad knees. Chance, dude, I. I can't I know you got to get out of here. So we're gonna wrap this up and do our final questions, but I. I just want to. One, thank you for coming on. Dude, this is. It's such an honor from doing this podcast for so long. But also, like me, Jeremiah, and all our homies growing up in Maryland, you know, we're younger than you, but not by much. We're in our 40s, but, dude, Cypress Hill has been such a huge part of our existence. Our cool times. Every time we used to hit the high roads and drive out of D.C. and go up to Fredericks. We can smoke blunts. We were listening to your music. And I continue to. With you.
- [96:33]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I.
- [96:34]
Josh Adam Myers
You know, I saw you guys at Terminal 5. Big shout out to Big J Okerson, who is. Dude, you guys do that. You do that song. What is that one? That's like, I'm gonna it up. I don't know the name of it, but it's like, if you use almost that, like Middle Eastern, like.
- [96:47]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Oh, yeah, yeah. Band of Gypsies, dude.
- [96:50]
Josh Adam Myers
Me and him have gotten high just driving to Montreal to do a comedy festival. That's one of his favorite song songs. We love you so hard, man. And. And the fact that I know we went over, but the fact that you just took the time out through this, dude, it means the world to us. And I. And I mean this more than anything, if I get a chance to ever smoke a joint with you, I would be honored. And. And it's like, I know one day the way my life is being, that I'm like the Forrest Gump of comedy. It'll probably end up happening. I want it to be your weed. Not.
- [97:19]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
It's not.
- [97:20]
Josh Adam Myers
Not some. You know what I mean? You know, I want.
- [97:23]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
That's gonna happen.
- [97:24]
Josh Adam Myers
I know it will happen. But also the thing that. I lived in L. A. 14 years, and your music prepared me for what I was going to get living in Los Angeles. I live in New York now, but Los Angeles is. Is where it made me.
- [97:39]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Made.
- [97:39]
Josh Adam Myers
Made me the artist that I am. It made me find a community. And I feel like being able to also, like, you know, we grew up in an area that was multicultural, but there's something about Los Angeles and being around that many Latinos, it's just. It teaches you. Your music was such engraved in us of just how it was going to be. And it's just you. You nailed it. So I can't thank you enough, brother, for everything that you've done and taking the time out to speak with us. Today, man.
- [98:03]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Oh, thank you, man.
- [98:04]
Josh Adam Myers
My pleasure. All right, we got the final questions. We ask everybody. This talking about the Chronic. What's your favorite song on this record?
- [98:12]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Oh, we. There's so many. But I'm gonna have to go with G Thing, man.
- [98:18]
Josh Adam Myers
It is.
- [98:19]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I'm gonna have to go with G Thing because it's just such an iconic joint. And. Yeah, man, I mean, like, you could bump that at any time, and that is slapping. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna go with G Thing and I want to thank you for having me. When you get out back out here to LA for anything, you got to come do the Dr. Green Thumb show and sit in and we'll smoke plenty joints.
- [98:44]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh, my God.
- [98:45]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
God damn.
- [98:46]
Josh Adam Myers
I mean, I'm coming. I'm buying a ticket. Delta One. I'm using Miles coming right now. All right, second question. Is this a no skip record or is there something you skip over?
- [98:56]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
No skips.
- [98:57]
Josh Adam Myers
No skip.
- [98:58]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Skips.
- [98:58]
Josh Adam Myers
I dig that.
- [98:59]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
You know, when. When I first heard it, I. I heard it front to back, and there wasn't one song that I skipped past. Like, even the interludes, you know, the interludes are brilliant work, man. I mean, you know, like, those are. You know, those are the little things that you miss about hip hop records these days, is most people are just putting songs into songs into songs and. And not having the transition pieces and the intros and the outros and that album classic from front to back. And. And those transition pieces were everything. I mean, again, it's. It's. It's a crown jewel in hip hop.
- [99:41]
Josh Adam Myers
It really is.
- [99:42]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
This is.
- [99:42]
Josh Adam Myers
This is like a. This is like a hip hop. It's a. It's a. It's like a. It's like a dark side of the moon. It's like every track. Track goes with every track. And. And they don't make, unfortunately, especially in hip hop. And I'll say this. Rock stars, pop stars, everybody are making songs to be streamed. They don't give a. About the record. A couple artists are. And I'm not gonna say that everybody. But it's like what y' all were doing, what Public Enemy was doing, what Tribe Called Quest was doing, Wu Tang, so on and so forth down the line. Biggie, everybody, they were making a full record. And it all. You. It was like to skip over. It's like you're missing what might be setting up the next song, even if it's just the beat going in just a little bit. And it's unfortunate. And hopefully, hopefully we get back to. I don't think we will. Because Spotify is paying.00001 cent of every stream you get. But yeah, it's definitely a no.
- [100:30]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Skipper, I want to say one thing to that point. You just made right in terms of our mindset and Mugs's mindset. And I know guys like the Bomb Squad and even Dream, they weren't thinking about making a hit record. They weren't chasing the hit. What. What we were trying to do is make a hit album because what. You know, what if the single is great, but nobody with the album. So we were like, you know, what a single. We're making a great album and that's the hit. You know, like for as many records as we've sold throughout. You know, all of our catalog and stuff like that. You know, we've had a few big songs and then everything else was kind of, you know, okay in terms of singles. But our album sold in spite of. Because Mugs delivered such a complete body of work in each individual album that you didn't need the single because they were coming to buy that whole album and take that ride, you know. And I think a lot of the producers in that time had that mindset. Like, I'm not chasing the hit. If we get one. Great. But the album has to be locked solid. And the chronic front to back locks lock solid.
- [101:49]
Josh Adam Myers
Lock solid. All right, second to last question. Can you. To this record. Can you put this on and bust the nut with a girl?
- [101:57]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yeah. Have a couple drinks and some smokes and.
- [102:04]
Josh Adam Myers
There'S some parts. There's some parts that might be a little hard. But I mean like when. It's definitely the. The. The. The.
- [102:10]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I'd be tuning out at some point.
- [102:12]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't. It gets a little aggressive. I mean, when you start doing like lyrical gang bang. It's. There's some things in there. Little ghetto boy. But for the. You know, the. The day the N word took over. I mean, there's some parts you might be like, all right, honey, let's just. Let's take a break. Let's get some orange juice real quick.
- [102:28]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
But it works.
- [102:30]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, you can. I think this is it. I think from putting it on from right at the beginning, I feel like you can get. You could get busy in it. It. Last question. How do you sum up this record? And like, what would be or in a sense, what would be your elevator pitch to get. Because this is the crazy be. And this blows my mind. We took me and Big J took this cat, this 22 year old kid that's like an intern for us. We took him to go see Wu Tang's final concert at, at Madison Square Garden. Afterwards, we're driving home, we're going to drop the kid off and he's just like, yeah, it's like, I get it, but I don't get it. It's just the lyrics sound like this. And he's like, I like the new hip hop because they have choruses and this. And then he played me something and it was like, it was so, it was so vanilla. It sounded like he played me new. And it sounded like every artist that's making hip hop right now, not taken away from certain people that are. But there is a sound that's, that is successful that people are copying. And we didn't do that in the 80s and the 90s into the, into the early ons. So like, how would you get like. And when I tried to explain to them how important because I put on, I put on Low End theory by, by tribe. I was like, well, check this out. And he was like, yeah, I still don't get it. And I was like, are you nuts? And he tried to say to me, he was like, well, would you rather have, have a brand new Mercedes or an old Mercedes? And I was like, well, if that Mercedes is one of the greatest cars ever made and it's still in pristine condition, I want the older. So how do you tell like a younger cat, especially them, because I feel everybody of our age knows this record. But how do you tell somebody younger to listen to Dr. Dr. Dre the chronic?
- [103:58]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I think they get it in their time. You know, a lot of, a lot of young cats are going to these old school playlists and finding their way back to some of the golden era hip hop, you know, like the Chronic and, and you know, albums in that time, it's, it's, it's not something you could tell them to go do because then they just think, oh, you old are just always trying to tell us what to do. Yeah. And you know, I think, think the, the reason that it's like that right now, where they prefer this more simplistic singing style that we hear that's a, you know, cookie cutter. It's, it's easier, you know, it's less complex than some of the older when we're trying to wrap our asses off and these guys are building these different types of musical layers that, that these kids these days, it's, it's too colorful that colorful for them and too much to like ingest until they're ready for it. Because I mean there's kids that just grow, grew up off the trap, you know what I mean? Where it's those 70 bpm style songs or 140 on the double time and they're rapping that simple. And you know, you have a bunch of these guys like following that hit, they are chasing the hit of the guy that or the chick that came before him. And you know, this is what radio plays on a daily, you know, force feeding them this type of. And then the playlist that exists everywhere. And this is what they're going to because their peers are listening to this. And so when someone older tries to implement, oh, you listen to rap, you should be listening to this type of. I said, well, that wasn't, that's not my. That ain't my time. Yeah, I like this. That's happening now. They say that for a while until they get tired of that and they start looking for something else. And because the, the library of hip hop is so vast, they start looking into those songs and then they say, oh, I missed out on this hold up. And then you start seeing them go to those shows like the Wu Tang and Cyprus and Onyx and Tribe and you know the rest. And then they know the lyrics and they're understanding it and then finally they tap into it. It doesn't happen quickly for all of them because you know, when you're washed a certain way, you're like this with blinders on. It's like the way a lot of us were in the 90s where we, you know, like I told you in the beginning, I listened to metal and all this other before I do what hip hop was. But, but when I got into hip hop, I sort of just did this. Didn't listen to anything else after that for a very long time. You couldn't pay me to listen to another genre. And it wasn't until probably that we went on Lollapalooza, the first one. And I start listening to rock and metal again because I see Soundgarden and they just totally kill it. It. Oh yeah, Nine Inch Nails. And they kill it.
- [107:11]
Josh Adam Myers
Oh yeah.
- [107:12]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
And it starts opening my mind again. So I, you know, I was significantly older at that point in comparison. Well, not really, you know what I mean?
- [107:22]
Josh Adam Myers
No, but I get it. When you're younger, in middle school, in high school, like you are in a sense, at least where I grew up, you were broken up by the genre that you listen to. You listen to hip hop, you listen to hip hop, you were a Metalhead stoner. You were the metalhead stoner or grunge or whatever. It's just. That's just some reason early on, these kids like the fact that they can with rock and they can with hip hop and some now hardcore with country, because country is having another turn. It's like, it feels different. It's almost like the same. We were talking about weed, where it's like, you don't know how lucky you are. You can listen to rock, hip hop, techno, and be okay and nobody's gonna make fun of you. Where we were like, you gotta listen. If you listen to rap, that's all you're listening to.
- [107:59]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
See, guys, your interns age, they'll catch on to it from another. Another guy their age or another one of their. Somebody in their peer groups and says, hey, man, have you heard this? You know, and that. And they'll take a listen to it, be like, oh, that's kind of hot. But if you or me are like, hey, check this out. Oh, you old. I don't want to hear your. I want to hear this.
- [108:24]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, dude, this is great, man. Go ahead, go ahead, finish your thought.
- [108:27]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I want to cut you off. Yeah, know, but. But they eventually find their way to it, and we've been seeing that. So there's. There's hope for.
- [108:34]
Josh Adam Myers
There's hope for everybody, man. And I mean.
- [108:36]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Is that right? Pedro.
- [108:38]
Josh Adam Myers
Pedro all day. What's up, brother? Good to see you, dude. Dude, this has been one of my favorite episodes in the seven years that I've been doing this show, so I can't thank you enough. Please promote away. Talk about the new record, talk about everything you, you want to promote. Use your moment and we'll do it at the beginning and put it on the file as well to make sure everybody hears it.
- [108:54]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Yes, sir. Right now we got that Black Sunday with the LSO out right now. It dropped not so long ago. There's also a film with it, the. The documentary of us going out there and. And playing it live. And it was an awesome experience. So go check it out. And for next year, we got another Spanish album coming that we're working on and another Skull and Bone style album that we intend to put out later in the years. So hip hop and metal, boom.
- [109:28]
Josh Adam Myers
Yeah, dude, I. I can't thank you enough for coming on, brother. Thank you, man.
- [109:32]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Right on. Thanks for having me.
- [109:34]
Josh Adam Myers
What did I tell you? What did I tell you? The one and only. Be real. And there were some anecdotes off, off. Not off camera, but when we hit Record. Stop.
- [109:45]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
We.
- [109:45]
Josh Adam Myers
We talked for another like 15 minutes. Morty was there. He's always in the wings, kind of like feeding me stuff in case I miss. So big ups to Morty for helping me get dialed in. I mean, this was just an easy one. Dude, I'm such a fan. This is, this is. These are the ones that I'm like, I just need a little bit of direction and help. But good golly miss molly. Like, this was great. Follow be real on YouTube at Bereal TV or berealtv.com Instagram be real. Go to Central Cypress hill.com Facebook be real at Cypress Hill and check out be Real on YouTube with Bereal TV where he's interviewing guests, providing the updates. And get live at Royal Albert Hall Black Sunday. Guys, it is amazing. Now we just listened to the Chronic from 1992 for new music. Peak, Peak Distro Kid has brought you the most recent what we've been talking about Cypress Hill's performance when they played with the London Symphony Orchestra at Royal Royal Albert Hall. This is the first single. It's called Illusions from the recently released live record Black Sunday. Find all the links on our website the500podcast.com and if you are in a band and you want your album or your music played on the 500, send us your song to 500 podcast gmail.com put the album and artists and influence you in the subject line. Next week is number 137 with the replacements. Tim. Oh it God, what a mess of the ladder of success. I take one step and miss the whole first room. What a great. Morty. Morty, we got work to do. We got a good guess for it too guys.
- [111:22]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Dig in.
- [111:23]
Josh Adam Myers
We'll see you then.
- [111:29]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Now shit is on the rise and my family despise me up and feed em cause I don't need them I won't join them if I got beat em they don't understand my logic to the gap to the money and I'm hooked on Chronic I never wanted to hurt another Unless you're complex in that trigger I' ma think ya that grave on the east side of town that you're six feet underground from man to the dust in the ashes all I remember tell me where the cash is Click clack in the barrel set the dome give all the loot on you ain't going home but I ain't going out on a bank I'm having illusions all this confusion driving me mad I'm having illusions all this confusion's me up in my mind I'm having illusions all these confusions driving me mad inside I'm having illusions Be driving me up the wall Hoping that I fall but they can hit the ball straight jacket crap it in the padded room what's a punk can't hack it Distracted from unreality Now I'm let down on a minor technicality they all fucked up now Cause they let the local back on the street somehow I'm looking for all you like me living in my own world to my own degree I'm the loose in the city Looking at the girl with the big titties looking at me and I feel shit A little tense dump getting hot she looks like my girl who got smoked at the crash spot I'm trying to find ways to cope But I ain't going out with the gay to a roll Illusions all these confusions driving me bad inside I'm having illusions all these confusions me up in my mind I'm having illusions all this confusion's dropping me mad inside I'm having illusions Some some some people some.
- [113:39]
Josh Adam Myers
Some people Some people some people Some, some.
- [114:04]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
I'm having it losing.
- [115:01]
Josh Adam Myers
The 500.
- [115:04]
Be Real (Cypress Hill)
Keeping it fleecy for the Police Nation on the 500, the 500 Next Chapter podcast.