Cypress Hill

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

420 stars.

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*

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.

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.

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.

Shitty degenerate ghetto culture. Nothing of any value on this album.

If I was a 13 year old upper middle class white boy this would be 5 stars.

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!

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.

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.

Debut album from them and it sucks nuts.

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.

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

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.

Cypress Hill I didn’t have many particular expectations either way going into this. Pigs is a great opener, the hook sample is excellent and that overall funk/soul vibe continues with How Could I Just Kill a Man’s using Tramp, and throughout the rest there are further great samples including Muddy Waters on Ultraviolet Dreams, giving the whole thing a pleasing sound. Rhythmically, however, and despite the great soul samples, I found it curiously un-groovy, feeling a bit leaden footed in places, with the exception of the insistent Latin Lingo Vocally I like their Latin American tone, giving them a distinctive sound and also a slightly different point of view from their contemporaries, however I don’t find their lyrics to always be that interesting or that convincing, I don’t get the same sense I get from Nas or Wu Tang Clan about the violence and inequality around them - although I do believe they aren’t fans of the police. But overall I enjoyed it, the extensive soul sampling pointing to the West Coast sounds to come and giving it a very listenable quality, even if rhythmically and lyrically it left less of an impression. I’ll go for a high 3. 🇨🇾🇨🇾🇨🇾 Playlist submission: Pigs

Fun to revisit but not required reading. And I'm glad we did revisit it, for today I learned that Cypress Hill have nothing to do with Cypress Hill. By that I mean Cypress Hill the neighborhood in Brooklyn. They are in fact from southern California. Wow. Ha! My bad! I guess I shoulda paid more attention to the lyrics?!? So all those times I would ride my bike through the desolate and creepy but gratefully traffic-free Cypress Hill Cemetery and fantasize about running into B-Real smoking a blunt behind a tombstone was even more ridiculous than I already thought? Damn, that's really funny. I feel like I need to walk back through all my priors now. it certainly explains why they didn't have the East Coast sound other than a tiny Bomb Squad influence with the wheezy sounds in How I Could Just Kill A Man, and the same sample De La Soul used ("What does it all mean?") So I never really loved these guys like a lot of my friends did, but they had some good tunes. Doesn't hold my interest for a whole album though, to be honest. But I respected them, and while I wouldn't necessarily put them on the stereo, under certain circumstances I might turn it up.

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

Not my thing.

Juvenile and irritating

Oh man, the Beatles loving whites are gonna hate this 😂

Shocked to see their debut album and not Black Sunday, which is a damn near perfect album. Not saying this one doesn’t deserve to be on the list, but Black Sunday is more of a must listen than this one. Still a banger of an album, and great debut. 4.5 out 5

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.

This isn’t their best work, but it’s a very important debut that clearly set the tone for everything that came after. With this album, Cypress Hill showed the world exactly who they were — raw, rough, tough, and completely unfiltered. While listening I felt that thick, dark, smoky West Coast energy all the way through. The beats are absolutely killing it, heavy and hypnotic, while the lyrics hit hard with that signature attitude. B-Real’s unmistakable voice gives the whole record its own unique identity — once you hear it, you never forget it. The whole project just oozes confidence and personality. It’s the album where they introduced their sound, their style, and their world to everyone. Even though it’s not their absolute peak, I’m always happy when I put this record on again. It still feels fresh, dangerous, and full of that early 90s fire. A strong debut that earned its classic status.

I'm not sure I've ever heard anything from this album aside from the classic "How I could just kill a man" (with its legacy of some excellent covers by later bands), and maybe "Hand on the pump", so it's nice to get a larger sampling of an interesting early 90s group. It feels like they managed to channel and mix the sounds of De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest with harder-edged rap/hip-hop (plus of course some nice Parliament samples in "Psycobetabuckdown"), and it also feels like you can hear their influence on later bands like The Fugees and Fun' Loving Criminals. It may not be the most accomplished album music-wise, but it's fun and refreshingly absent of non-stop braggadocio and violence, and just due to that fact alone makes me torn between three and four stars; the addition of Spanish-lyric songs pushes it into four star territory.

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"

Good but gets a little repetitive after a while.

Really fun beats but some of the lyrics didn't age so good

I think they were a two hit wonder unless you are a very specific type of person…

I never minded their hits but I've always thought of them as a novelty act not to be taken seriously. On first listen, I was pretty annoyed with the nasally vocal delivery and thought the sampling wasn't particularly interesting. I rated it 2 stars. For some reason I decided to give another listen today and I've gotten use to the vocals a bit and found a couple favourite tracks. Uping it to a 3 star.

I recognised many samples used by the tribe called quest and de la soul, which is interesting. I know 90s rap a little bit, it is alright, but dated sometimes. Gonna be harsh though

Hits a lot of my usual talking points for hip-hop from this time: some stuff that has aged poorly, some fantastic sample work we’ll never hear again, and a homespun charm. I respect it as one of the most influential hip-hop albums ever made and enjoyed my listen fine, but I don’t expect to revisit in full.

I honestly had no idea what to expect with Cypress Hill other than it being a Rap Collective project akin to Wu-Tang Clan, and when listening to this album I was pleasantly surprised with what was delivered. If there was any part of this album I'd like to highlight, let it be the instrumentals/beats as they take the cake for the most striking parts for myself. Yes the rapping is good and all but I wasn't super blown away by any of the lyrics and the higher pitched rapping voice of one of the main MCs. For being 46 minutes it zips by and doesn't ever try to do anything too crazy or serious. It feels nestled in the grit and edge of 90s Hip Hop and stands as a perfect capsule of what to expect when digging into that time frame. I wish I liked this more but I just don't think it does enough for me to be truly wowed by it.

1. Puff puff 2. Play Cypress Hill 3. Close eyes 4. Bob head (Attempt to ignore misogynistic lyrics)

DJ Muggs' production is the star of this record, and it's genuinely exceptional — dark, hazy, cinematic beats built from deep low-end and carefully chosen samples that create an atmosphere so complete it could function as a full listening experience without a word being rapped over it. In a genre where production often serves the vocals, this record almost reverses the equation. Which is also the limitation. B-Real's nasal, stylized delivery is immediately recognizable and completely distinctive, but it disappears into the mix as texture rather than asserting itself as a voice saying things that demand attention. At times the vocals function less like a rapper and more like another sample — present, purposeful, and ultimately absorbed into the atmosphere Muggs built around them. The lyrics become wallpaper over extraordinary furniture. The adolescent hip-hop connection that made NWA land with real personal weight doesn't quite activate here in the same way. The production pulls you in completely while the lyrical content adds limited resonance — similar to the Common experience earlier in this project, where the music underneath was doing more work than the performance on top. The beats deserve a four. The record as a whole lands at three. A genuinely impressive sonic achievement that stops just short of full connection. The production alone makes it worth knowing — just don't expect the vocals to match it.

hip-hop selection on this list largely canonical and stellar but i find this one pretty annoying, sorry :(

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

C'est du rap

I just have never been a fan of gangsta rap so this just doesn't do it for me. Could not make it through this absolute trash of an album, every song sounds the same. They sound just like ICP, not sure who bit who's style but it's all bad.

I don't have anything positive to say about this album. I don't understand the people praising the sampling, it's largely like, a one-bar segment, played on repeat for the entire duration of the track. Lyrically, I think the entire album covers literally 3 topics: - Weed - Guns/killing people - Hating the police Which realistically is all the same topic. They also manage to throw in some occasional homophobia just as the icing on the shitty people cake. Easy 1.

I'm sorry, this is just noise to me.

Shotguns, Pigs, Niggas, Gangstas, lalalalalalalalaaaa. Music for mental midgets. Boring.

Why are there so many Hip-Hop albums in this list? As far as I can tell there's nothing to distinguish this from virtually every other Hip-Hop album.

I am ambivalent towards the instrumentals and the vocals. They are merely okay. But the lyrics are so... meh. Guns, police, drugs, speaking shitty Spanish. Meh.

Maybe if I were 12 years old I’d think super lame songs about weed, violence, and saying fag would be the height of sophistication. Maybe.

Gold! Could do without the homophobia but in the context of its time this album is legendary.

Album full of aggressive, cop hatin, pistol packin, reefer smokin, bouncy old school hip hop. Hell yeah.

Believe it or not, this is actually my very first time listening to this entire album from front to back, but I'm definitely familiar with most of the songs on here already. Even then, this is one of those albums where, despite never listening to it fully until now, every part of it feels comfortable and familiar. A lot of that comes from how much Cypress Hill's music has been sampled and referenced over the years by so many producers, DJs, and artists. This is definitely one of those classic, influential albums whose sound has had a huge impact on music in general, including styles outside of hip-hop.

Trend-setting.

Stone cold classic

Classic

goes hard

In which my old, pasty ass falls in love with a new band.

All killer no filler. This album is still a banger.

It's a dynamic album that has some interesting samples

4.5

Rv

Peak

Listened to on my Apple EarPods. God, what a fun rap album. You know, for as much as rap can excel at personal storytelling, political fire, or energizing success bars, there is a true lack of rap that not only sounds great, but sounds like it was fun to make. I think of stuff like Beastie Boys' 'Paul's Boutique', Wu-Tang Clan's debut, or something more modern like Brockhampton's 'Saturation'. Cypress Hill's eponymous debut is one of those albums, even when main rapper B-Real delivers bars that are sometimes brutal and dark. Now, I'm not unfamiliar with Cypress Hill, but I've never really delved deep into any of their work. Really giving them a try with this album filled a hole I didn't know was waiting to be filled in my rap knowledge. This is just stacked with incredible flow and unique beats. For me, my closest reference point is Public Enemy, a group I'm very familiar with, who have the same kind of energy, just trade their social-consciousness for a lot more pot-headed lyrics. DJ Muggs serves as the beatmaker for the album and he is just an absolute force, filling the rhythm with heavy bass and thumping drums that contrast with the thin melodies and chopped up vocal samples that glide over top in weird and funky ways. There are just a lot of weird samples on here that you can only make work if you let it serve the song without any judgement, like if "ahh, I don't know if we should use that, it sounds kind of bizarre" was a statement that never said in the making. The voice of B-Real and the hype-man energy from Sen Dog are also from left-field and mix well with that production. B-Real never really grabbed me with his lyrics in general, but there is an undeniable mastery in his ability to flow from line to line and even word to word, with a lot of internal rhyming in the lines, and that combined with his voice makes him fit like a glove on these tracks, and super entertaining. Sen Dog has a more hidden presence, occasionally offering his own verses with a great voice and unmistakably shouting in the back of a lot of tracks, which add a lot of character. In particular, tracks like the opener 'Pigs', 'Light Another', and especially 'The Phuncky Feel One' stuck out to me. That last track in particular--I think--showcases Cypress Hill at it's fullest power. This isn't just cause it sounds great, but because it has such a cool three part structure, B-Real rapping over the main beat, then Sen Dog coming in for a half verse over a beat switch before going back to the main beat and B-Real, and finally closing with the pair trading bars over the beat switch. This song just truly encapsulates the fun of this album as everybody gets a chance to shine. There is just a lot of great stuff all over this record. The beat switches from DJ Muggs that actually add to tracks by transitioning nicely and sticking around for a bit (wish beat switches nowadays were as masterful and exciting as this). The bi-lingual rapping in Spanish that adds some icing to the cake near the end of the record, courtesy of the Latino roots of B-Real and Sen Dog. The unstoppable flow from B-Real that refuses to quit on any of these tracks, and the energy from Sen Dog's interjections. I mean, even the hooks on this are good, and they are mostly just repeating the same line over and over. It's a testament to the delivery of B-Real and the production of the tracks that it never gets boring in those moments when it could come off as weak. This is an album that is not afraid to get freaky and weird, all in the pursuit of making something that sounds unique and fun. Fun, fun, fun! I keep saying it all over this review, cause there really is no better way to describe it. There were some moments on this that I didn't super jam with like the rest of the album on my walk yesterday, but listening to it again during this review, it's just so damn hard to find fault here. Just a resounding, excellent work of hip hop, that even nowadays stands out as wholly unique. You listen to one of these tracks, and it's undeniably Cypress Hill. It couldn't be anyone else.

I’d give this 10 stars if I could

Classic

I mean come on this is the sickest

🤟🏼👌🏼

I had never listened to this album. I only knew a few songs off of it. But this album was exceptional. I really enjoyed it.

I've never really opened myself up to old school gangster rap, but I am somewhat familiar with Cypress Hill so I knew some of what to expect. What I didn't expect was to bob my head and dance in my chair smiling for a straight hour while I worked. Great album, maybe a touch repetitive but honestly, that's the worst I can come up with, I get why this isn't everyone's jam but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

9.5/10

This is exactly why I wanted to do this project - I would never have picked this up/discovered this myself, it is so different to my normal listening and the lyrics feel a bit dated and far from my own experiences or views. And yet, I loved this! The samples and mixing was fantastic and I enjoyed every track. Hoping for more surprises like this!

it's just so fun Will I listen to again: 100%

Cypress Hill as fuck, which is to say that it's really good.

They are so damned underrated.

This one is FUN. The groove and the flow are irresistible. Funky samples. Perfect execution.

Muy buen disco de Cypress!!!

Lyrics are good

GREAT HIP HOP ALBUM

Solid hip-hop. Didnt realize how many other artists covered and sampled this album.

It was SO stylish and cool I'm honestly amazed. Really liked the beats and the usage of samples on this one, as well as the recitative itself. It was entertaining the whole time, every track was great, I think I will now have to get to know Cypress Hill better.

Real Estate

hilarious and amazing 5/5

this is incredible

5* - made me go and listen to the next CH album

Ya de entrada Cypress Hill me parece genial y siempre he creído que tienen toda la onda del mundo. Ahora, además, encontré este disco en donde le meten una onda medio latina y hasta canciones en español, así que no había cómo no amarlo. Y para quien se espante de lo pelado de la música actual, escuche Tres equis en este disco, y recuerde que esto fue en 1991. Vaya madrazo.

It's a great latino west coast hip hop album. Not the greatest I've heard, but great nontheless. Cypress Hill are legends for a reason. 5/5

Part of the 1991 soundtrack to my freshman year of college. I still love this album. Such a weird and unique release when it came out. Production is amazing, sampling from funk, jazz, soul, and bossa nova; then blending them into something that is totally its own. A lot of stuff from this era sounds dated now, but this holds up really nicely.

sawed off shotgun prst na obaracuu jebacu ti kevu u muriji pevacuu

Awesome stuff!

I don't think they liked the police, but I did like this

Funky hip hop. A delight of an album. Big hits and no filler.

I love the groove of CH, it all seems so smooth