Cypress Hill

I noticed some of the lyrics seem to imply that these boys are not on very good terms with the police.

When it comes to hip-hop, I'm a fan of good lyrics. Why would you listen to someone talking for an hour if they having nothing interesting to say? Largely, this mean I'm not a fan of gangsta rap. However, I've I did have a soft spot for Cypress Hill about 15 years ago when I used to smoke weed. I had this album on CD and have fond memories of smoking bongs and playing old Sega games. Listening to it again after all these years, holy fuck I'm blown away by how consistently great DJ Muggs is. He takes short snippets of funk and soul, then transforms them into these new compositions which are quintessentially 1990s. It's amazing how much hip-hop producing had progressed since the 80s. In terms of lyrics, there is lots of stuff here about guns, drugs and cars... but it's nowhere near as obnoxious as most gangsta rap, and the two rappers have such cool, compelling flow. Overall, even though this is lyrically a little boring and even though I don't smoke weed anymore, this is an immensely enjoyable record. 4*

420 stars.

This album is funky and fun stoner psychedelic rap from the streets. Amazing stuff and it has a through line that makes sense in hip hop history.

Cypress Hill is on that leading edge of gangsta rap going mainstream and, for purposes of cultural relevance, belongs on the list. That said, it's not my favorite. The boom-bap beats and devil-may-care delivery are fun but the lyrics just wear me down after a while.

Not strictly bad, just boring.

From bossa nova to Latin hip-hop. Wow, I think I'm loving Latin music. I'm not a big fan of rap and marijuana culture. So I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed this impressive album. First of all, the beats and the sampling are awesome. Apparently, they made it marijuana-style psychedelic, which explains the trippy atmosphere of the songs. There is also something about their rapping that gets me. I like smooth yet solid nasal delivery, it's not overly angry and it fits perfectly with the beat. Overall, kudos for one of the first rap albums that I genuinely loved. PS. So that's one of the songs RATM covered. PPS. Cover art effort = 1/5; Production effort = 5/5.

Inventive, twisted samples courtesy of DJ Muggs, funny and frightening lyrics delivered with trademark cartoonish, nasal sing song flow by B-Real and ably supported by Sen Dog’s hard as nails throwdowns and raps. Still sounds fresh today and is a lot of fun. Pair this with ‘Black Sunday’ for an extra good time, and I dare you to name a more iconic duo than these 2 albums.

I remember hearing Cypress Hill a lot on the radio and I don't think I appreciated them at the time. I'm glad to have an opportunity to listen to them as an adult when I have a great appreciation for rap music

To my teenage-years demographic (North West United Kingdom, mostly but not entirely white, middle-class faux-Mancunians, later prone to giving each other Wu-Tang Clan-style names like “Beany Fingers” - random example there), Cypress Hill acted as a hip-hop gateway to the perceived harder stuff, and I have a faint notion that once inducted we regarded them as light. I think it’s the hooks - playground chant-like, sticky, and more prevalent than on the average hit hip-hop album, the big-voice little-voice carousel that makes me think of Looney Tunes characters, and refrains that leave no doubt as to the subject matter. Listened back-to-back with a production by the Bomb Squad, the instrumentals sound almost minimalist, again playground-like. Though I’ve only ever borrowed this album as a teenager, I could remember almost half of the songs, and found myself muttering “born to get busy” as I trundled through Costco, now facing my dotage. Pretty good!

Genre: West Coast Hip Hop 4/5 Another solid entry in the West Coast Hip Hop genre, Cypress Hill's self-titled debut is a playful and humorous album with plenty of quick rhymes and phat, boom-bap style beats. The early 90s are littered with soundalikes and imitators, as rap and hip hop were taking over the charts, as well as the culture. Cypress Hill, however, was creating their own unique lane in the rap game, and would soon find that their sound was the one which would be copied and ripped off for years to come. Regardless of how lyrically aggressive some of the tracks may be here (Pigs, Hole in the Head), the core of the record, and the messages behind most tracks, are engaging, conscious, and are handled with a biting sense of humor. How I Could Just Kill a Man, the big single and best song on the album, and a song which would become further popularized after Rage Against the Machine covered it, is a tongue-in-cheek look at gun violence and the unfortunate necessity for members of the black community to carry a weapon, with B-Real and Sen Dog trading witticisms like hobbyists trade cards. A tragic, yet quirky play on your average west coast hip hop album, while accidentally providing the sonic blueprint for many records which would follow. Really lovely record overall, and one I will certainly revisit.

It was really hard to get past all the casual homophobia but this is undoubtably a really strong album

I felt stoned just listening to this.

I mean, genius stuff. Punchy, fluid. Great mixing. Inventing things and reinventing things. Gritty and angry, but playful.

Tough to evaluate, as Black Sunday is my all time favourite rap album but I somehow hardly ever listened to this....and Hand on the Pump/Glock opens a whole can of worms. By definition, a cover of a song you like is unlikely to match it, but what if the cover is by the same artist and you heard the cover first! At first this seemed to be a work in progress. There is something going down but it's not as slick, witty or inventive as BS, but the second half really starts to get it's funk on and points inexorably to the masterpiece that they produced next. Probably need to be young, frustrated and stoned to get the most out of it though.

4.0 - Can’t believe I slept on this one for so long - it’s magnificent! The beats from start to finish are impeccable. The way they blend musical samples from so many sources and make it sounds that seamless? Incredible. I love the stories here. The rhymes and the flow are unique - I love that knucklehead scoundrel MC sound they got going. These songs transport you into their world briefly.

This was a pleasant surprise. I remember them but never listened to anything but their radio or MTV hits. Lyrically I don't identify with it, but the music and melodies have good vibes. Something about this album is oddly satisfying. Strong Sunday morning album, I listened through twice. Groovy find on the sonic voyage.

It was fun being a young teenager when rappers like Cypress Hill and Dr. Dre were blowing up in the early 90’s. I remember having friends and classmates, 13 years old, buying pot leaf necklaces at the mall and turning up at school wearing them. I’m talking about kids who wouldn’t have the first idea of where to even buy weed and they certainly hadn’t even smoked it yet. It was just a symbolic gesture, but the thought of pasty 13 year old suburbanite kids walking around projecting that they were these seasoned, tough potheads still makes me laugh. I should add, I’ve got nothing against pot smokers - I smoked more than my fair share over the years (probably a bit too much, even). It’s just that these were kids that I grew up with for years, who, one day, decided to switch everything up. It was like “dude, I remember that time a couple years ago that you tried to do a slide tackle at soccer practice, ended up cutting your leg and started crying, you’re not fooling anyone.” With that journey to the past complete, Cypress Hill’s debut record is pretty great. You get a good blend of rock and funk samples flipped to hip-hop, with at least one P-Funk sample, which was a pre-requisite of the era. It’s a bit psychedelic and the rapping is great. Still enjoyable, even if nostalgia plays a factor in it for me.

If I'm honest I got into this on the back of black Sunday which wa the album after. But after all these years sounds great. They crew a sound like no other with their funky break down and contrasting voices. Stoned is the way of the walk is still one my all time favourite hip hop songs.

I wasn't so familiar with this album, more so with Black Sunday. Enjoy the album, I kinda phased out and got into the beats. No idea what the lyrics were about, getting stoned and police harassment I guess. Good album, shame about the artwork though.

Classic! Great beats and rhymes, inane lyrics that are both too silly and too violent to know what to think, and B-real's nasally voice, you either love or hate. So many songs have built off of samples from this album, listening to this is like a greatest hits of all the hip hop it inspired afterwards.

Good samples, lyrical variety with different deliveries demonstrated from song to song. Lyrical themes start off generally focused on taking tough and exacting punishment, especially on pigs, then transitions to blazing after ultraviolet dreams, offering a lighter tone to the album before finishing funky. Leans heavily on repeated choruses but the strengths are the verses. Distinct nasally vocals are occasionally distracting. Pigs, kill a man, phuncky feel one, Latin lingo

Distinctive, cruisy and just great beats/samples. Reminds me of high school. How I could just kill a man is my fav track

5 out of 5 production - it is funky as fuck. The writing was pretty full on at times even by Biggie/Eminem standards but it didn't stop me nodding my head. Tres Equis and Latin Lingo are easy highlights (maybe because they're not in English - just kidding)

Unique flow, super fun record. Gives you a lean in your step. Figured that the delivery would get old after a little, but it never really did. Favorite tracks: "Stoned Is the Way of the Walk", "How I Could Just Kill a Man"

Well, they have a place in this genre. It's hard to evaluate so many different sides of hip hop. They sound polished and their lyrics are quick and strong. The sound is unmistakable, and clearly they took the west coast hip-hop style and ran with it. They are the product of a violent sub-culture, and on one side, like NWA, they comment on the violence around them and the disparity between groups, and they also glorify violence both as posturing and as a way to promote the conversation. This is distressing and requires context to understand appropriately so not to consider it glorification. That being said, I think Cypress HIll lean too far into the violent side without much explanation. The gangsta side is pretty heavy handed here, but the pro-marijuana element is a nice side theme to their work. Overall, this is a pretty solid album, albeit, the emergence of the band more than what I think they were capable of becoming, which their next couple albums accomplishes. 3.5/5

Boring

2,5; amazing How I could just kill a man; album is not bad, it's just kinda boring

C'est du rap

Juvenile and irritating

Still hits so hard ... "Time for some action, just a fraction of friction/ I got the clearance to run the interference/ Into your satellite, shinin' a battle light/ Swing out the gat, and I know that will gat ya right"

One of the top albums of it's genre in the decade. Hands down.

Top 15 rap albums ever. Super fresh, creative, diferent sampling, new instruments, mix between gangsta rap and psychodic rap and its so good the interludes you dont skip. The flow of this album is perfect.

West coast best

I have the cassette and listen to it frequently. Great album

Just some gangster rappers that love funk 9 out of 10

With unique vocals, Funny lyrics, banging beats, Hip hop takes cool turn

Love this,

CYPRESS HILLLLLL!!!

real hood shit right here. the kind of hip hop music where you have a blunt in your mouth and your pimped out car won't stop bouncing to the radio. i'm not surprised that wikipedia lists these guys as pioneers of west coast hip hop, because these beats are SO good to listen to, making usage of distorted vox and bumping breaks. pro-kush, and plenty of stories about what it was like growing up in LA.

Great for the genre

The beginning of one of thes best hiphop bands live or on wax. If you don't like the sound, you're wrong.

I forgot about Cypress Hill.. and I dont think I've actually ever listened to this album. It was fun.

Perfect transition from 80s rap to 90s. Full of classics. Excellent album

Fantastic. Hard, funky beats with a boisterous, playful energy. I loved all the little bells and whistles in the music — the sampling is top-notch. And the vocals occasionally add some sing-song hooks that add to the fun. The main rapper B-Real has a great, nasally voice and a killer flow. He reminds me of Danny Brown, one of my favorite current rappers. I always thought Danny Brown’s voice was one of a kind (it’s sort of an exaggerated, cartoonish version of B-Real) but it’s cool to see that he almost certainly drew inspiration from Cypress Hill. This was a blast and I’m excited to keep listening to it.

I have to confess that I really enjoyed the record. It’s actually cool rap music.

Best! Original! Innovative!

Great album. I had this back in the day but maybe never appreciated how ‘advanced’ it was for 91. Solid, funky production. Reasonably interesting flows for the time. Nice contrast with the nasal tone of B-real and the phat baritone of Sen Dog. I’m just glad these guy smoke a lot, because if the weed wasn’t mellowing them out a bit, imagine how aggressive they’d be on coke or booze? Maybe of the coolest things about Cypress Hill is how self referential they are. I love how they sample themselves and lay the foundations for future tracks.

a classic

Great album

This album is in my top ten of most listened to all time. I love it, I love Cypress Hill. It's crazy that The Cocteau Twins got two albums on the list but Cypress Hill's Black Sunday was left off. How I Could Just Kill a Man is the best Cypress Hill song ever. This is an all time great song: the beat, the lyrics. Hand On the Pump next...that might be the greatest back to back tracks on an album of all time. Hole In the Head is a great album track, they wouldn't lean into the Spanglish or Spanish lyrics until later, but you get a brief taste on it. 90s hip hop acts loved skits/intermissions in their albums. The Phuncky Feel One is another great album track. This might be the best hip hop album of all time. The hits were huge, influential and awesome and the album tracks are terrific. B-Real and Sen Dog are underrated MCs and DJ Muggs is an underrated DJ. Real Estate is going to roll right into Stoned Is the Way of the Walk, love it. These guys love weed. Latin Lingo...with the funky bilingual...underrated song. Latin Lingo was released as a single which I do not remember but it definitely deserved to be. Tres Equis was their first Exito en Espanol. Born to Get Busy's chorus and the party noise is the first thing I actively don't like about the album. One of the best albums ever made, confirmed.

Great album.

Classic

An amazing Rap album

That funky Cypress Hill shit.

A classic.

We played the crap out of this album in the early 90s. I got to see Cypress Hill a few times live. Once around 2002 at the Tabernacle in Atlanta and they cleared an 8ft bong during the show on a ladder. It was magic. They are underrated.

The perfect mash-up of NY and Cali hip-hop, from a band so influential they deserve far more credit. No massive hits on this album, but none the worse for it. Anyone who loves rap & hip-hop but doesn't rate Cypress Hill needs to have their sonic world expanded to include them.

Not my usual listen but I listened to this album at least three times. I will again now I think. Good stuff.

Not my genre but instantly a bop

Kickin that funky Cypress Hill shit Take a lot of mental for the blunted to chill with Cuz I'm the chill one, known to get ill one They stepped to the Hill "What's up?", I had to kill one Now I'm headed up the river with a boat and no paddle And they got me on lock down Headed up the river with a boat and no paddle And they got me on lock down Living like a nigga who done lost his mind Cause I ain't goin out like a spineless jellyfish Some say life is a bitch Ask that punk who dug his own ditch Out for the Hill fuckin up at a party Tried to get funny, put a hole in his body Look at all of those funeral cars Cause I'mma Sawed off shotgun, hand on the pump Left hand on a forty, puffin onna blunt Pumped my shotgun, niggas didn't jump I love this shit. 5/5

I didn't realize this was all Cypress Hill! Incredible! Truly OG's

420 stars.

Makes me wish I was a stoner again

Some ppl tell me that I need help

Satirical, bangers, lesser known (to me) than Black Sunday but just as good

Second early 90s rap album in a few days that I’ve really loved. Just now really getting a grasp of how big the boom in hip hop was in the late80s/early 90s. Like I knew of the huge acts before but now have so many different albums in this period that I love. Rating: 4.6

Ah, lads, listen up! Cypress Hill's album, "Cypress Hill," is a feckin' masterpiece. The beats hit ya like a well-poured pint, and the lyrics? Pure poetry with a rebellious spirit. It's a musical journey that'll have you nodding your head and raising your glass in the pub. Cheers to Cypress Hill!

Yes! Yes!

Has me hangin' out the window with my Magnum, takin' out some puto's

Love it! I’m biased towards Cypress Hill so the album was top tier

I should have listened to this a long time ago.

V good

The first album is a giant classic of hip hop. Not only you have the cartoonish, near-parody of gangsta rap with B-Real's & Sen Dog's lyrics that show how you can laugh about yourself and still be gangsta at the same time. It is mostly known for the production by DJ Muggs who as a Westcoast guy uses an near all-sampled approach of classics of funk and soul music in a very sophisticated way. Their music would get darker in the subsequent records so many people consider this record as one of the bests. I say you can listen to all of those first four albums. Best tracks: How I Could Just Kill A Man, Latin Lingo, Hand On The Pump, Stoned Is The Way Of The Walk

The straight dope

90’s best hip hop

Fantastic early 90s rap album. A masterpiece of it's time.

9/10 based as fuck

I haven't listened to this in decades. What a mistake, I apologize. This whole thing is incredible. They have a unique sound that is instantly recognizable with cool lyrics and catchy beats. Pretty much every song got a "like" from me.

Blunty horror core from the old dark school. My kinda hip hop.

This album was lit. It felt good listening to some classic hip hop again

Another awesome album I'm very familiar with, it's been a while so looking forward to hearing it again!

I love 90s hip-hop, start of an era

Great album using sampling. Usually I find it hard to vibe with album depicting black culture since there's a lot of excessive seating involved, but the lyrical content of this album is just the right balance

I have it on wax - it's a hip hop classic. It's the bouncing, off the wall DJ Muggs production. Even when this album isn't giving 10s it's giving interesting two minute experiments. I love it!

awesome amazing

Love this album, didn't even need to listen

Beautiful album - it has wit, agression, inventive use of rhyme and samples. Excellent

Really great confrontational 90s hiphop. All of the sampling is great. Made me want to kill a man. 5 stars.

Like Clash's London Calling that came up a day or two ago, I want to give this a 4.5, but I can't. Again, this is a classic album, and in this case it was definitely a soundtrack to a part of my life long gone - so for that it gets the benefit of Swedish rounding.

Liked

Classic hip hop

From the very first track, the landmark significance of this album impresses itself on you. Just an outstanding debut which doesn’t overstay its welcome, as with so many of its contemporaries and imitators. Infectious beats, catchy hooks - a hip-hop masterpiece without question.

cool

My favorite Cypress Hill album by far!

Came to this only knowing 'How I Could Just Kill A Man'... Fun samples and just grabbed me.

Just about every song on here hits, and it gets straight to the point with classic 90's hip-hop. All killer, no filler.

Dig it!

Was heerlijk fietsen op deze

Man, that hit the spot. Some amazing beats, loved the deep bass sound, the party atmosphere. Hip hop is not my genre at all but thought it was irresistible. Music is weird like that. This is what this project is all about, finding cool stuff you wouldn't normally listen to. This is likely to become my go-to party album. Loads of great tracks but I especially enjoyed 'Light Another'.