In the wake of N.W.A's brilliantly produced yet warped glorification of inner-city turmoil on Efil4zaggin this past summer, the Los Angeles-based rap group Cypress Hill jumps into the hip-hop gangsta scene with a debut album sure to raise a few eyebrows. Pushing the credo of "funky awareness" – street-life experiences riding over head-bobbing
Read More
beats and samples – rappers B-Real and Sen Dog and DJ Mixmaster Muggs have produced an album that is engaging and innovative in spite of its hard-core messages.
The first song on Cypress Hill, "Pigs," is a sing-along reminiscent of the childhood nursery rhyme about little piggies – with a twist: The "pigs" in this tune are L.A.'s men in blue. Over a casual, strutting bass line and a stinging guitar figure, B-Real's high-pitched voice proclaims his community's contempt for the city's law enforcers.
While "Pigs" is somewhat reserved stylistically, "How I Could Just Kill a Man" bum-rushes listeners with a stomping drumbeat toasted with blaring horns and random shouts. The title is purposely misleading. The song is actually about ghetto-survival techniques: "Say some punk tried to get you for your auto/What, are you gonna one time play role model?/No, I think you'll play like a thug."
Cypress Hill's freshness is further evidenced on "Hand on the Pump," which features a running sample of the early rock classic "Duke of Earl." And dig the live bass and percussion and guitar licks on the Spanglish "Latin Lingo." Cuban-born Sen Dog shows his dexterity as a rapper as he swings with the beats between his native tongue and ghettocentric jargon.
Cypress Hill unveils an arsenal of sounds ranging from reggae to rock, all firmly rooted in the distinct cultures of Southern California. Rather than capitalize on the violent images prevalent in gangsta rap, this trio spins tales of reality that play down the shock factor; the album is a merger of craft with the commitment to inform. To paraphrase B-Real, you don't know where they're at if you don't know where they've been. It's worth finding out. (RS 614)
KEVIN POWELL
Rap Pages (1/96, p.32) - 7 (out of 10) - "...B-Real spits out lyric after lyric lambasting critics, ex-homies and anyone else not down with his familia....Some of the record might sound familiar, but, hey, that's the Cypress sound..."
Rolling Stone (11/16/95, p.109) - 3.5 Stars - Good - "...half of III bumps with a new and improved Cypress Hill sound that marks producer Muggs' progress....For all the rude immediacy of its rhymes, III is an album of many musical hues...Cypress Hill still wield an intoxicating power that's all their own..."
Q Magazine (1/96, p.124) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...The production is sophisticated, incorporating Indian sitar and sloping, almost psychedelic bass grooves to create a vaguely threatening ambient hardcore..."
Melody Maker (10/28/95, p.39) - Bloody Essential - "...resonates with freakish cheese-wire paranoia....a gobsmacking paradox of expansive claustrophobia....The funk patters like an erratic heartbeat, the voices are stretched to bursting with menace and loathing and mockery..."
New Musical Express (10/28/95, p.54) - 7 (out of 10) - "...At its most powerful, tuneful, sarcastic and entertaining, it's sneering '90s hip-hop....In the weeks of the OJ fall-out and the Nation Of Islam Million Man March, Cypress Hill have made the album which reflects US and, therefore, global paranoia with spookily apt timing...
