B-Real on Dad Shot 12 Times, Joining Bloods, Forming Cypress Hill, Ice Cube Beef (Full Interview)

all right it is my honor today to welcome be real lead vocalist of cypress hill one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time first latino hip-hop group to go platinum selling over 20 million albums the first latino hip-hop group to have a star on the hollywood walk of fame and also hip-hop's biggest advocate when it comes to the legalization of marijuana yeah welcome to vlad tv welcome thank you cousin thank you thank you for having me back this is our second time but it's been it's been about maybe seven years since our last one yeah it's been a minute yeah we got to hang out a little bit during that time yeah i was you know smoking dabs backstage at one of your halloween shows oh man i'm still high i think from that from that night man dabs they're lethal oh you know you got to build tolerance for some dabs oh yeah so i salute you for even going now you don't try right i mean you actually have a picture from that night backstage where we look like twins yeah when he was twinning yeah you know if i was to get the full deal yeah it totally looked like you look like me again exactly well we've interviewed you before but i really want to get into the whole cyprus hill story because we have a little more time this time yeah so let's start from the beginning so you have a mexican father and a cuban mother right were they immigrants my mother was an immigrant my father was born in this in the united states in arizona if if uh history serves me correct within my family yeah his uh his parents were born in mexico but they would go you know back and forth to um to um where was it chihuahua and in durango and all those different places and go back and forth from there to arizona and uh so you know my father you know he's mexican-american but you know his his uh his parents were were born in mexico grandparents and all that stuff so but he was born here okay your mom's emanating from cuba yeah and my mother escaped from cuba escaped okay yeah she didn't have a normal immigration she she didn't immigrate here you know the way some cubans were able to she had to escape so she got on a boat and basically yeah yeah yeah ended up in miami somewhere yeah pretty much a raft a raft yeah yeah she had to escape a prison one because she was a political prisoner at a very young age and one of her um uncles worked in the prison and he helped her escape made her a makeshift raft that's how she got off the island wow she was found by like a fishing boat you know uh maybe a day or two later crack skull the whole [ __ ] oh wow and they helped her get into uh one of the ports might have been new york that she came through first i'm not sure or like uh the boat was obviously you know between cuba and florida but somehow i think they ended up in new york at the end of the trip i don't know how that happened but you know that's how she got here so did she was she speaking out against castro yeah pretty much that's why she got locked up yeah so does your family have this real hatred towards castro uh well you know pretty much you know it's it's it's like anyone who escaped yeah um the communism that was happening there through castro yeah they don't have anything good to say about dude you know i mean if you watched a few years back or maybe it was six now when they were announcing you know the possibility of his death you know all the cubans that were celebr celebrating in the street in in florida i mean you know that's that's real [ __ ] because i mean you know he executed a lot of people's family members yeah you know and uh he was uh one of those uh guys that uh yeah unless you were brainwashed by him and you lived there you know you didn't like him at all yeah i mean i my family got to move away from communist russia yeah and i heard how bad it was over there yeah you don't want to be in one of those communist systems right now in the 70s and 80s like you just absolutely do not it was really like hell it doesn't work no it doesn't work it doesn't work okay and you grew up in southgate so well i moved around los angeles a lot but i spend time a lot of time in southgate which is where i met sandog and his brother melo and uh which is where we started the cypress hill you know group band whatever movement vibe but yeah i moved around la a lot i lived in east l.a all over parts of uh that side and you know south central gardena up in the in towards the south bay man i moved around a lot i know this city like the back of my hand you know it's crazy well your dad was actually uh shot at one point yeah 12 times 12 times yeah what was that about well you know pops was into to some [ __ ] that he didn't necessarily speak to us about i i suppose maybe a couple of my older brothers maybe knew what was going on but you know he was involved with some some serious people and uh a dispute happened amongst them i believe you know as far as the story is told to me and uh you know my father was a truck driver and uh you know he had his own trucking company and stuff like that and they would you know um transport copper and other goods from a to b and whatnot and he had other partners and he had you know friends that were into some different things if you will right and within that dispute some tension happened and you know the one of his uh boys that that was like he considered a mentor to him who the detention was arising with uh came down to his spot and shot him 12 times and shot two of the co-workers at uh my father's trucking company and uh you know it was still un still we don't really know what that dispute was over but you know my father was a g he made it through he didn't he didn't die off that off that uh 12 shot sitting you know he had it's crazy because he got shot six times by one one uh caliber when dude unloaded and my father got up off the ground he cracked dude to give himself enough time to you know try to run away as he was running away dude grabbed his other [ __ ] and shot him in the back six times and uh you know my father was a heavy sad dude he was maybe six feet 300 pounds so he had a lot of meat on him you know i'm saying enough to get across the street to this diner that was uh that was across the street from the the trucking company where you know they saw him bloodied up and he passed out on the counter they call it the cops well that's happening dude walks through to see if there's any witnesses shoots another dude in the back paralyzes him for the rest of his life and uh while they were operating on my father he had like two heart attacks on the on the operating table lived through that [ __ ] i mean you know we were all we all thought he was he was done i mean 12 bullets two heart attacks two different calibers one you know i believe was a 22 so he had [ __ ] bouncing around in him um but he was tough and and he made it through that [ __ ] and uh i remember they were asking him you know to press charges against dude and he wouldn't do it really yeah he was like nah i'ma find him at another point and i'm gonna deal with him that way he chased him through the court through the court um you know when they when they saw each other when they were going to court for the first time and my father was well enough to you know move around he tried to chase dude through the courts and the sheriffs had to like get between them but yeah you know my father grew up that way he wasn't going to press charges on dude he wanted to get him the funny thing is the funny part to that story nothing of not no part of it's actually funny but the irony is is when my father didn't press charges they didn't have a case against the dude right so dude he was an older man he threw a party um that night that that you know they they dropped the charges on him and he wasn't gonna have to go to prison or anything he [ __ ] had a heart attack at his party died at his goddamn party wow yeah and then his son out of you know his son blamed my father for this to try to take shots at my father later on the guy's son tried to shoot at your dad yeah later on like maybe i'm gonna say five ten years later he came looking for him at a at a business my father was working at um and he came and tried to you know get it get a drive-by going on on my father that's crazy he didn't hit him yeah but you know my one of my nephews caught up to him and gave him the business and beat the [ __ ] out of him for that one but yeah i mean that's that's you know whatever my father was into i mean i could assume what the type of [ __ ] he was into but you know that's that's how that's how it all transpired with him you know we we were all shocked that homie died from the heart attack but even more so just the the the sheer strength of of my father to make it through that you know i'm one of 14 siblings you know my father was married three times so i got half brothers half sisters and you know we were all you know tripping the [ __ ] out i mean they had to send me and my sister in hiding because we were having threats on on our family and stuff like that because of that [ __ ] right there we would get calls like we're we're going to get your father in the hospital and all kinds of [ __ ] like this i mean we i grew up in the [ __ ] early man yeah no and um it it just sort of opened my eyes to people and and the [ __ ] that you choose to do well at one point you joined the neighborhood family bloods yeah which i guess also family swan bloods yeah known today um were you kind of following in your dad's footsteps in a way no no because that was something he was not not down with at all like one of my older brothers you know he he was in gangs too we're we were the only two my father would hit with his [ __ ] was not gang related it was something deeper you know he would never tell us but it had it was something deeper than gangs right my brother he was involved with gangs he went with latin you know with the with the latin gangs with brown folks um i i went a different way you know i lived in a different neighborhood i hung out with different cats and my older brothers you know i'm saying different times and you know i connected with my homies from from uh families through send dog you know he went to school with uh one of the homies down there and every now and then when he'd go visit homie in the hood i'd go with him and i started you know being friends with a lot of these homies and [ __ ] like we connected on on different things and i was a youngster there was a lot of [ __ ] older than me and that was [ __ ] my age obviously because with the gang you have all sorts of different ages [ __ ] that want to get in early or that are born into it early you know me because of my family background i just sort of naturally went fell into it you know it was something that uh i had a choice it wasn't like no one was not giving me a choice like hey you need to be down with this or else this or that it was something i chose it called to me and i went to it and uh you know even though it was like something totally different than what my brother was doing with the latin gangs you know i got a lot of [ __ ] for it too being you know appearing more latin than anything um i got [ __ ] for that you know but i didn't give a [ __ ] because i was down from my hood i was down for my homies they were down for me and it was uh it was basically an extension of of a family to me you know i i couldn't relate to other people the way i could with these homies and even though we were into some bad [ __ ] it was it was that connection we all looked out for each other but that's that's how that's how it happened you know pretty much scent dog was was uh you know homies with with some cats down there and he was affiliated with them to a degree and then he introduced me to them and i became a full-fledged you know member of of that neighborhood right well for the longest time the surenos and the black gangs in la had always been at war there's always been tension yeah so but here you are a kid who looks mexican yeah even though you're half mexican but yeah you look mexican right but you're part of the bloods yeah so what happens when you guys run into the mexican gangs we rarely ran into any mexican gangs at that time it was very like you know we stood in our neighborhood they stood in theirs and we even had homies that were from mexican gangs i mean there was a mexican homie that was there before me he moved out of the hood and and moved somewhere else but he was like the first mexican homie that was banging with them and and at that time most mexican homies was banging with crips out you know there was very few of us really banging with bloods um yeah but you know it was tough because you know whenever we get you know rolled up on crash or or uh any lapd of any types man they'd be [ __ ] with me off the top like what are you doing around here with these guys and you know i'd have to be extra and i'd get [ __ ] with extra you know but uh that that the tension between black and brown you know it wasn't necessarily as much on the street as it was in the prisons at that time it it it leaked over into the streets much much later you know so like if the the the thing that would have happened is had i gone to serve any serious time you know what i mean um as an adult gang gang member whatever and i'm mexican i would have had to dealt with anything that was the the the racial tension that was happening in the prisons at the time i would have to have chose a side and then make a you know deal with the consequences of that choice so if because i'm mexican i would have to roll in that you know on that side and if i don't i'm gonna get rolled up by these dudes if i choose to roll with the bloods i'ma get rolled up either either way i'ma get rolled up because one side feels i should be roll rolling with them and because i'm a blood over here they feel like nah man you should be over here with us and so there would be a conflict any anyone who's like me and any of those gangs has to [ __ ] deal with that and some choose the gang they're from over like what they are like you'll see it and sometimes those guys got to deal with it you know right well the the mexican mafia um was his name peg leg yeah who was white right was one of the founding members right of that and he stayed on the mexican side yeah he could have joined the aryans and everything else like that in prisons but he stayed on the mexican side the whole time yeah yeah and you know he was high up very high and they protected him you know what i mean so you know that's that's a different story when you're just a soldier you don't get that same type of protection you may depending you know on the type of homies you have around you but it's it's it's not easy being of another ethnicity in in a gang you know like if you're if you're a mexican and black gang or you're black dude in a mexican gang or a white guy in a mexican gang there's all sorts of politics man but you know if if you're well respected and high up there and one of the shock callers yeah ain't nobody gonna [ __ ] with you but if you're a soldier you might get [ __ ] with yeah i interviewed danny trejo who's actually good friends uh with peg leg yeah he was saying how like 10 people died over the movie american me yeah over like the depiction of the the leader getting raped and yeah some of the other stuff and from what i understand some of the people featured in that movie like i think was like got killed because of them being in that movie four out here and about i think six in prison you know uh you're saying how yeah because hollywood you know yeah um hollywood [ __ ] takes a hollywood style privilege and adds [ __ ] to a story that's not really there yeah you know and and and some people that are in that world take offense to some of the liberties that you know hollywood might take in telling a story like that and they definitely did yeah i mean there was a real body count around that uh edward james almost had a hit on him oh yeah at one point i remember that remember that green light oh yeah i mean you knew about it yeah it was all talk it was talked about out through los angeles in terms of if you were connected to the street at all and you were a fan of dude but you knew what was going on you knew it wasn't safe for him for a minute yeah to be walking on the street over over some of the stuff that that they told in the movie you know just for the sake of embellishment and and making it more dramatic and [ __ ] yeah well you end up getting shot at 17. yeah what was that situation about oh [ __ ] you know uh we were uh a group of of homies from my set we were hanging out with with uh homies from another set in their neighborhood and um you know we were we were uh we're hanging off imperial just uh maybe west of of hoover where one of our og homies lived he had moved out of our neighborhood and moved towards these other homies hood that we knew so he was relatively safe right there you know what i'm saying so we you know we went to go party with him and [ __ ] like that and oddly enough someone asked hey where where's the weed at and oh this homie answered oh man i got you know i got some weed at my crib two blocks away and we're like all right let's go get it you know because we didn't want him to walk you know through the hood by himself i mean because they that neighborhood shared a neighborhood with a rival neighborhood right so you know we get maybe um he dude our homie live maybe like 500 feet from the corner on imperial to to hoover and as we're walking there you know usually one of us got a strap on us that day we got caught slipping we didn't have the strap we left it back in homies [ __ ] crib which was literally 500 feet away you know but there was no way to get that with with what happened so as we're walking up on the corner a car you know full of uh homies and blue hats you know who's cripping they seen us we're bleeding and you know all the [ __ ] starts you know that all the [ __ ] talking starts and before you know it pull out you know the 22 he starts capping he hits one of my homies um here he turns right around he runs away and he got hit here but the way that he got hit made it look like maybe he got hit here and he was about to fall down they've immediately turned the gun on me i'm running down the side of a wall here they take four shots at me the last one ricochets off the wall and bounces right into the side of my back punctures my lung and it was with the 22 hollow points so uh a piece shot above the heart piece shot towards the spinal cord and the pieces over here somewhere so i got really [ __ ] lucky but it punctured my lungs so i fell out like after i hit the corner like i was able to like take maybe five to ten steps before one of my lungs collapsed and my homies found me right there they they they didn't know if i was gone or not but they saw me there they picked me up they put me in cadillac and rushed me to killer king hospital i was i was more in fear of being in killer king than what actually happened to me because the rumors that of what happens to [ __ ] at killer king hospital which is martin luther king hospital in linwood um or compton whatever that whatever city that's that was in um i believe it was linwood the stories that you would get there like you'd go in for small [ __ ] and end up never coming out of there you know i mean so that's what was on my mind more than anything it wasn't necessarily that i got shot i mean i was tripping that i got shot for sure but more than anything i was like where are you taking me taking me to kill her king [ __ ] that but they took me there unfortunately you know they were able to help me out um but it was a trip because you know there was like [ __ ] the emergency room was full full of [ __ ] gunshot wound um victims man you know and i was the youngest in there i was like 16 17 years old and all these grown-ass men and some of them gang bangers and some of them not all in there for major gunshot wounds you know fortunately you know where the pieces ended up didn't affect anything other than you know the lung puncture and they you know they told me they didn't want to operate because there was a couple things that could happen right one they'd have to open me up which normally if you've been shot right in the upper torso anywhere they're [ __ ] splitting you down here to to remove you know whatever they can get to and fortunately for me i don't have that scar they didn't get into it because like where my [ __ ] was at they said well you know it's too close to the heart the fragment we could possibly induce a heart attack on you the other part is too close to your spine so if we try to get that we could paralyze you the other one is a non-factor so the two that they didn't wanna they didn't wanna touch you know could have possibly changed my whole [ __ ] life so i just said you know my question was what happens if i leave him there and say well you'll have some discomfort but eventually tissue will grow around it and you'll be fine but i had to spend a week there getting my lung recovered you know like blowing into this [ __ ] piece that they give you to re um to to get your lungs back to 100 capacity and whatnot so i was there for a couple weeks and man the gang banging that would happen in the hospital was [ __ ] nuts so people would be fighting each other man you'd see you'd see you know other blood you know they thought i was a mexican bank banger they didn't know i was like you know damo in it so you know when i'd be getting wheeled in none of the crips would come at me but they'd see other dudes that they know that were for sure that they knew for sure were bloods and they'd be like [ __ ] riding on each other right there in the hallway in their wheelchairs with their nurses pushing them to their next [ __ ] therapy thing and then you know people coming to visit their homies you know like you got bloods and crips and mexican gang bangers that are all up in that hospital and all their family and friends are coming it was truly a a [ __ ] gang magnet that hospital i'm surprised like more shootouts and murders didn't happen in that [ __ ] hospital waiting room or parking lot you know then then it did because i mean it was like a hub like you know put it this way right that was the place that they sent you if you didn't have any insurance and no gang bangers have insurance so they sent you there and uh it was it was pretty uh it was like a war zone that hospital was not only like a place to you know try to fix people from what was happening in the la war zones but it was actually a [ __ ] war zone itself okay so you still have bullets bullet fragments inside yeah does it bother you at all or not really when it gets really cold i'll get like from the nerve damage like [ __ ] here like the little stinging little needles and then i got like you know a scar here from when that popped the tube into my lung to get the blood out of out of my lung before they could re you know give me the therapy to recuperate the lung yeah yeah was that the only shooting oh no we i had been in many but that was the one that got hit it's the only time he got hit yeah so you'd been in a bunch of shootings pretty much you know when when you choose that lifestyle shit's gonna happen you're either gonna be on you're gonna be on one end or the other of of that strap you know and and when you're [ __ ] gang-banging you end up on both sides of that hopefully you know if you're lucky enough you don't get hit by by the opposing side you know what i'm saying um but that's that's the life i mean how it is now i you know i really couldn't tell you because i'm not tapped in but in in those those uh in the mid 80s and early 90s man it was it was on and popping like that you know you couldn't turn your back on the street like if you were standing on your block the worst thing you could do is have your back turns just turned to the street because any time someone could hit the corner and just come and let you have it if you're not ready for it lights out did you ever find out who did it no i mean that it's tough because realistically there's so many gangs that surround one area i mean there was like maybe six five or six neighborhoods that share that stretch you know what i mean so it would have been impossible unless they they were calling out their set you know when they were when it all happened and no one did that it was just [ __ ] you blood [ __ ] you you know [ __ ] you this [ __ ] you that yeah blah blah blah well you know all the [ __ ] that happens between the opposing sides you know what i'm saying first you know the [ __ ] set tripping and then the [ __ ] you [ __ ] you and then the papa pop you know so it nobody really identified what neighborhood they were from it was just we you know they knew we were bloods we knew they were crips they were strapped we weren't right and what's interesting is that you know later on once you started releasing music you weren't talking about bloods no i mean you were talking about gang banging right but you didn't specifically mention uh you know you're set you didn't you didn't mention um well there was one time i i did which was throw your scent in there in the air giving up the family up and down central oh okay and because that's where our family swung yeah yeah um but but when you're in san pedro but it was never really overtly like like you said right well because i remember speaking i was speaking to was it was it mob james where dj quick was like the first person to really start claiming sets absolutely on a record yeah nwa once again gang banging whatever but you never heard easy say kelly park crips right or or anything else like that dj quick was the first one to actually say what blood said he's from was it a treetop treetop yeah and then later on it just started to kind of you know mc8 started claiming his and then you know more and more uh hip-hop groups now it's common but back then yeah it was uncommon back then it was just all hush-hush like we're not trying to put all that out there yeah for me it was like i made a choice right just like i made a choice when i started banging this was my choice okay so i have to accept what happens with these choices so like obviously the trajectory is i could either end up in prison or dead paralyzed or just this [ __ ] lifelong and and this is what i'm gonna do right this is my choice so whatever happens to me i chose this when i started [ __ ] with music i chose the music right and i said you know what i cannot bring none of this [ __ ] into the music because this is something different this is something that's you know to me like the fact that syndog and mugs and melo came and got me to to to make music they said hey listen we know you're doing this [ __ ] over here but why don't you try come writing songs and at first i was like nah [ __ ] that you know i'm right here we we're gonna make we ain't gonna make no money rapping you know what i'm saying i was totally like on some [ __ ] you know i was indoctrinated i was washed this is what i wanted to do i couldn't see anything else but somehow they convinced me they're like well what do you got to lose just come [ __ ] write a song and if you know if you don't like it [ __ ] it you come back here and uh so i said all right [ __ ] it oh and so i wrote a couple songs for melo's first album and it let me know that i could still do it because before i got into gang banging we was in the hip hop was you know on some rap [ __ ] on some b-boy [ __ ] but i let all that go when i got into the gang banging and [ __ ] um when these dudes brought it back to me i got bit by that that bug of creativity and writing i thought [ __ ] i could still do this hold up and i was kind of you know straggling between banging and and and making music and then eventually when we made our first demo that's when i chose i was like you know what i cannot bring this [ __ ] into this one because i don't want to [ __ ] up the opportunity that these dudes brought to me i don't want to [ __ ] up their opportunity because they saw fit to come pull me out and give me a shot and i don't want to [ __ ] their chance up so i'm gonna leave this [ __ ] over here and i'm gonna put my time energy and focus in here and you know it was a simple conversation i had with with my homies you know because within a gang you know you have clicks within the click because if you got a gang of 200 people not everybody is close and not everybody's cliquish together you know everybody has their their own group within that set and i told my homies like hey this is what i'm gonna do so i'ma go do this [ __ ] they're like we got you handle that [ __ ] don't worry about this [ __ ] over here [ __ ] this we you know it's gonna be here you don't need to be around for this [ __ ] go do that and they always had my back with that [ __ ] and yeah you know i would imagine that their slow [ __ ] was like oh man so yeah leave the hood and [ __ ] like that but hey listen you know if you got a talent and you got an opportunity you best jump on that [ __ ] you know i was i i had homies a support system that one they came and got me two they they made me feel like as though i could do it like hey listen this is what you should be doing as opposed to just you know [ __ ] it do what you're gonna do let yourself go waste away i had homies that gave a [ __ ] so that that was that helped me push through to leave that that life behind and focus on music you know and i would make reference to some of the [ __ ] you know what in in in in in relation to my set and ins and like in terms of claiming it but i didn't overtly like glorify it you weren't in red rags on your covers and stuff like that yeah no because i wasn't trying to fuel a fire if you will i was trying to show that there is a way out of that [ __ ] right well you're friends with sendog and his brother is mellow man ace right and i don't think people realize how big the song mente rosa was just huge opened up many doors huge i remember i was living in the bay and that was like the biggest record in the bay he hit a lick with that one oh he did well his biggest song ever yeah to this day true that and tony g produced it julio g was his dj who later you know became our dj um yeah man i mean he had it all clicking right there because he what he did was he brought that spanglish style out there that nobody was you know [ __ ] with i mean kid frost too them two were sort of two guys you know that that popped that style off um one in the street form and one in the you know like the party smooth homie party form you know what i'm saying and uh yeah they both pioneered that [ __ ] you know and they opened it up opened up the doors for cats with with getting in with that particular style right so so here you are you're friends with sendog and his brother is now blowing up as mello man ace and muggs was in the group 783 yeah he was the dj slash producer yeah and they had uh coolant and cali and cali yeah which which was a moderate success and then they did colors for the movie colors oh okay or it's a mad world it's a mad world that's a bad mad world they did a sound colors was a iced tea yeah yeah yeah but i was saying on the movie movie they did a song called mad mad world on that soundtrack so now two of the people around you have are connected to success in the music industry right you know major lay back then there really were not you know independent labels like that it was yeah there was a few there was a few but these guys were now we're now on majors so you guys form a group and originally was called dvx right devastating vocal excellence yeah you decided to leave that out i'm sure it was really fresh at that day it was when you look back and look at it now like i was like i didn't make the name up though it existed before i came into the crew right uh but what what's the trip was um before 73 and and um even before mello hit his lick you know we were all hanging together before that like mugs was part of our crew and you know we were all just working on demos trying to figure it out and i believe muggs mugs met brett b and and uh his brother sean through another homie that we had through a mutual homie and they you know they made a connection being that they were both from the east coast they they caught a vibe and when that when that all that was happening that's when out sort of kind of you know slipped out the back door and started banging and [ __ ] like that and they stood hard in the paint in terms of of music so as you know mugs gets put on with 783 he starts working with melo on on some of his demos and and sort of uh was formulating mello's first [ __ ] that would go out on delicious vinyl before he got on the capitol so you know we were all working together but i was kind of out of the loop until you know until melo really you know got his deal going and that's when they asked me to come back and start trying to write for him but we were all a crew before any of that [ __ ] happened so you know mugs i think always recognized that i was a pretty decent writer and if i was around the right people i could learn to be a really good writer so he would you know have me hanging out with brett who brett taught me how to write a song as opposed to a rap you know so i learned a lot from that [ __ ] but you know it was like things needed to go that way i think as opposed to us trying to you know go for and make these demos the way we were making them before this [ __ ] happened because we didn't know what the [ __ ] we were doing um but when muggs got with them you know he got around other people and he learned the the the process of how you [ __ ] create a song from scratch how you produce a song and all that [ __ ] and uh you know that those were the those were the things that sort of carved [ __ ] out for us later because he learned all those things and then brought him to the table when he decided to to connect sam and i back together as a group because before we were sort of just backing up mello san and i and then i got i got put off and then i you know i went i went back into the to the [ __ ] i was doing and send dog became melo's hype man for a time you know what i mean so everybody was functioning and i was like pretty much the last one in the loop man i mean it took me a second to to catch up to where they were at writing i was there but in terms of performing and having a voice that [ __ ] would [ __ ] with it it took me a minute but yeah man it was uh in those early times and even even after 783 you know mugs was like constantly around um you know like cats that were related to uh rhyme syndicate i mean we were always hanging out with rhyme syndicate cats man yeah they were like our mentors and [ __ ] like that everlast was in that group yeah and uh man it those were fun [ __ ] times they were big learning experiences because some of the guys that that we were hanging out with were dudes that we looked up to like and you know we're like [ __ ] we want to do what they're [ __ ] doing so we just sort of paid attention the do's and don'ts if you will well you know cyprus hill these days is a household name but this was not a typical rap group name i mean dvx was more of a a common type of name for that cyprus so when you first heard it were you like oh yeah this is the name or like cypress hill like this isn't well see this is what this is what confused people so we um sendog lived on cypress avenue in southgate and you know mugs was our only connection to east coast music east coast hip-hop really and kate whatever k-day would push you know through the mix masters we'd hear that but muggs being from the east coast he'd go back and forth and he'd bring us back these [ __ ] jewels right and he brings us back this [ __ ] record um the wild style record with ram lz and he was talking about in one of the rhymes uh shot up town to cyprus hill broke into a def a a death seville or some [ __ ] like this we're like cypress hill cypress cypress ave hill [ __ ] let's call herself cypress hill and it was from that and he was one of the dudes that influenced me in terms of pitching my voice you know what i mean because my rap voice at the time was more like my talking voice and it just didn't cut through it it was whack and you know me and melo were big fans of ram lz because this [ __ ] would pitch his voice high or low and in the middle and we thought man that [ __ ] is crazy and especially bugging out when he he he'd throw that high pitch um tone in in the middle of one of his raps and and you know we started [ __ ] around melo and i just experimenting with that [ __ ] and that eventually you know birthed my style which was the high nasal style that people became accustomed to but it was that it was it was that artist and a song on the wild style album which was obviously one of the first hip hop documentaries while starring i don't know if you could consider a documentary more than a movie but that that dude influenced us to change our name from dvx to cyprus hill right there's also ad rock who had the high pitches oh yeah ad rock and and um for the beastie boys and uh and uh mike d but before them it was ram lz yeah okay so you guys put together this demo and you get assigned a roughhouse right and at the time was it fuji's was on roughhouse no they weren't on there yet they came after us okay were you guys the first groupon roughhouse or i think who wasn't i'm looking schoolyd was on there it was schooly d who was first and and then uh cris cross no crisscross came right after us um [ __ ] we were one of the first two it could have been the goats that was after us see the goats were after yeah and then fuji's came after you guys and then i remember they had homie that was the pied piper for a small time that guy they were this close to signing dmx from what i hear do you know um but they dropped the ball on that all right that's a ball drop right who the hell does not sign my man right there you know that was that def jam got him though oh yeah right but i believe roughhouse had a chance to get him and they they passed on him i could not believe that but they passed on house of pain too which i could not believe yeah you know but it you know it is what it is that you know people are meant to end up where they end up because who knows if they blow up in that scenario with with roughhouse you know well you guys dropped your debut album it was self-titled and you had the logo with the skull with the weed plant on it and you know these days everyone in hip-hop smokes weed and wheat is legal most places and so forth but at that time no rappers were really talking about weed to that extent in fact nwa had a song called express yourself and dr dre said i don't smoke weed or cess because that's known to give a brother brain damage and brain damage on the mic don't manage nothing but making a sucker new equal don't be a sequel right weed was considered kind of like and i remember me being in high school around that time the loser kids were considered the stoners there was nothing cool about smoking weed it was taboo it was a taboo it was considered sort of like okay you're on your way out you're burnt out you're a burnout you're a loser you know and so forth so it wasn't something that i was looking up to but then that's this first album comes out and it was just so dope and there was just weed references all throughout i started smoking weed around that time i was going to uc berkeley right and we were bumping cypress hill and we were smoking weed and you know to this day i still smoke weed every day i blame you for this well thank you thank you for that um you know for for us it it we were just being ourselves really talking about the things that that we felt were important we were talking about [ __ ] that we were doing you know it was very much us we didn't realize the impact that it would have in terms of um being spokes um men for for for the cannabis movement or the legalization movement that wasn't even something that we thought about um we didn't think that normal or high times or or any of um these existing cannabis platforms would would come to us and embrace us because i mean you know at the you know at the end of the day we're a hip hop group and hip hop was the step child and at the time of all music genres you know was was not getting the respect that it should have and it was a young genre still even though we were considered maybe third generation hip-hop artists at that time it was still very new and the fact that we were coming out talking about cannabis and then not necessarily being a gangster rap group but talking you know gangster [ __ ] within the context of our music um you know we didn't we had no [ __ ] clue that that um that they would embrace us like that and embrace that particular message now kids that were listening to hip-hop a lot of them were smoking weed and so were the artists but because it was taboo and you know there definitely wasn't going to be anybody playing your records that you know making references to to cannabis at that time no one dared to talk about it because you know could you get a [ __ ] record deal talking about this [ __ ] right no realistically we we were lucky enough that we had joe and chris from roughhouse that believed in what we were doing just beyond the cannabis [ __ ] they looked at the music as a whole which which helped get us through the door but once we got through that door the messages that were received by people that that loved cannabis and that wanted legalization here we are talking all the [ __ ] no one else will talk in in in music at that time aside from you know what bob marley and peter tashan and the reggae artist that were championing legalization you know here we are a new hip-hop group coming out swinging hard on it yeah and uh fortunately you know it i think we made it okay to talk about you know because we we did it unapologetically and you know we kept evolving and elevating and educating people and and creating the awareness for cannabis legalization and we didn't care what it was going to do to us because you know we felt strongly about it after we realized like we have this platform to say something for those people for the people like us who think it should be legal [ __ ] it you know this is not what all our music is about but we will speak to it you know being that now they're they're embracing us and they're asking us to speak on their behalf so um it's a it was a trip going from one group um talking about it and then dealing with all the [ __ ] slings and arrows that come with that right to now you know you had other artists in other groups talking about it which made a bigger splash so we never got um we never got like that that that feeling like what the [ __ ] are y'all coming in our lane for y'all need to stay in your lane [ __ ] no we were like the more people that come into this lane is going to get us to that finish line we're looking at a lot faster so we embraced everybody that was started talking about cannabis even if they didn't know what the [ __ ] they were talking about you know yes talk about it but as as anything man you know [ __ ] over saturate you know just like when 50 came in the game and he took those shots and some people felt like that validated his career that didn't validate his career he's a [ __ ] dope artist you know what i'm saying [ __ ] makes dope songs yeah that adds to his whole story and the fact that he survived that as to his story but he's a dope artist but [ __ ] started thinking oh man i need to you know get involved with some [ __ ] to get validated it was the same thing for cannabis for a minute like oh you know what if i'm gonna be a hip-hop artist i got to have a song about wheat and so you got you know so you got the positive and negative about it you know you got people talking about it and now it's it's a little bit more normalized but you know you got unknown uneducated [ __ ] just trying to make money off you know a weed song and that's cool but those are the positive and negatives of it you're going to have people that are sincere that really want to see things happen for real and and be a part of that process and then others that just want to cash in and capitalize off of the [ __ ] [ __ ] you know well this was such a incredible album i mean this was to me like a life-changing album because it was so different than anything else that i had ever heard i've been a hip-hop head really since the beginning yeah you know from you know the message and the run dmc's first album and so forth and this thing like the production on it mugs really just went all out it's really kind of interesting now because i just interviewed uh chuck d from public enemy when i listened to like the bomb squad production when i listened to what you know you guys did on this first album i i i now see the similarities yeah it's like the noises and the kind of the off pitch and the yeah the the weird kind of sound effects that that kind of work when you put it all together they were one of our biggest influences like i mean i could say that about our group period you know from mugs to senddog myself bobo we were all very much influenced by by public enemy uh probably the most influential hip-hop group to us aside from run dmc you know um and that was because they were out of the box in terms of their style their content their flow their production their production was was innovative and cutting edge and ahead of its time they you know they they put brakes hooks bridges um all these ill ass sounds that was chaos and harmony mixed in one and we loved that [ __ ] and so you know when muggs came into his own in producing which you know a lot of people don't give him enough credit the [ __ ] is a genius i agree um he was able to be influenced by that but not copy it he developed his own form of that that harmonious chaos with bridges and breaks and [ __ ] that made the song come up and then drop and then come up like a roller coaster yeah and we were very much in tuned in that style mugs and i you know what i mean because we like the same [ __ ] like from the darkest hip-hop to the grittiest to you know the most out of the box [ __ ] we were always on that same page so we always looked at us like a flip side of public enemy but with different things obviously that we talk about you're the high pitched guy and syndog is the low pace right we're pretty much reverse of of yeah right a reversal in in terms of our vocal tone and uh a dusted out trippy version of the production yeah if you will you know what i'm saying and and uh yeah i mean we learned a lot from just listening and watching them and and uh yeah i mean i i think if it wasn't for them i don't know if there's us because i mean we crafted our [ __ ] to be as different as as theirs like you know we were like we thought of them as something so out of the box that we needed to be out of the box too we didn't want to be like especially coming out of california if you came out of of of southern california you were expected to sound like nwa you know a version of that frost yes or or kid frost if you're [ __ ] latin exactly and we did not want to be in that box yeah because you guys didn't come out as quote unquote latin rappers yeah you know and i remember even like i remember i interviewed mr criminal and he was talking about latin hip-hop groups and he said well you know he said he's a big fan of cypress hill but he's like but they came out more like on the black side meaning kind of like more traditional hip-hop well first of all i don't consider cypress hilts gonna wrap realistically i mean i know they're brown skin but you know they say like [ __ ] in their raps and they they represent themselves a little more hip-hoppy and more a little bit more like urban like like like like black side i'll give you that you know the cornrows the whole nine like we don't rock like that so uh i think that that helped play into their success as well because they weren't in a box you know what i'm saying it's just like chicano rapper just like that solo image you know what i'm saying whereas you know what he was doing was more like on the mexican side and that's true it's true it's very truthful um we wanted to just be looked at as a hip-hop group and not a latino hip-hop group because at the time we came out it was lighter shade of brown out during that time no it came later no kid frost and mellow were probably the only latinos out at at the time that were slightly before us yeah right um maybe two a year or two before us yeah yeah yeah mello i think came out in 88 or 87 or something like that yeah um yeah i mean so like there there wasn't too many other latinos um around maybe fat joe maybe fat joe but like his [ __ ] was hip hop right and and no one no one talked about the fact that he was you know it was latin hip-hop it was just hip-hop yeah well i actually looked it up lighter shade of brown their first sound brown and proud came out in 1990. oh okay so [ __ ] they were before us that's crazy just slightly i don't know if that yeah yeah and this is this album this album charted yeah uh yeah i wasn't really paying attention to them unfortunately rest in peace to the homie you know um we had little beefs with them at times but um yeah i mean for us we didn't want to be foothold in this latino hip-hop yeah thing that hadn't existed yet right so in other words there were those of us like lighter shade brown like kid frost like mellow man and ourselves and eventually joe and pond and the rest at the time we were doing it there was not a latin um a latin audience for hip-hop there was kids in the hood there were latino that [ __ ] with hip-hop but in terms of like a latin bass like if you were labeled as latin hip-hop people that just [ __ ] with hip-hop they weren't buying that yeah it was only to the mexican crowds yeah and the mexican crowds the low rider shows and they weren't buying that yet yeah they were buying like that yeah they were buying oldies and funk and [ __ ] like that you know that hip-hop wasn't a thing to them yet and you know like it was growing in that community because of frost and because of of melo but it wasn't there yet and we knew that so it was like we didn't want to allow ourselves to be boxed in by a label as a latino hip-hop group we were like we know we're latin we know what we are and we're proud of what we are but we're not going to exploit that to create this new new [ __ ] box we want to just be a hip-hop group you know what i mean and we'll show people what we are what we are and who we are through our music and if you listen to every [ __ ] cypress hill album there's always a latin flavor join out there yeah first time i had latin lingo yeah and and yeah there was latin lingo and there was thresekis right one which is spanglish and one which is which is total spanish and we continue that theme later on and then we eventually make an an ep or a yeah ep or album remake in in exitos grandes where it's all spanish speaking and you know but we wanted to build that we didn't want to that that to be the main focus on us because we wouldn't have sold any records you know what i mean right and and uh it worked too hard to you know yeah it i i don't know if sony saw what what we were trying to say in that but they but they rode with us and they realized okay yeah let's let's let's go this route these guys are talking about let's let's let it happen organically and as the latino community opened up to hip-hop you know it became a bigger thing and you saw many groups come out and then blow the [ __ ] up after that and uh the talent that would come out you know and and and the the like the the actual hip-hop or the the the companies that were investing in the hip-hop artists they now saw that there are some latinos out there they can [ __ ] get down with this with this genre and be something and [ __ ] make a huge run and uh you know it took a minute for them to see that i mean even so they let us they let us in little by little you know you there's more latin artists now but at that time it was like little by little because you know they didn't know how to sell us and and for you know fortunately for us we stood we stuck with our guns and said you're going to let market us as a hip-hop group not a latin hip-hop group and you know that helped get us out there now these days there's there's a a base for latin hip-hop in in and and the the reggaeton lane and all that stuff and all the new [ __ ] that spawned from that now there is definitely a lane so you can get a latino rap group or an artist and market him towards that [ __ ] and he's gonna do great but back then that didn't exist yeah it was just hip-hop and we didn't want to be in the void right and such a such a brilliant album man uh hole in the head is my favorite song yeah that's one of my favorites that's the beat on that and the way you spit on that is just something something else and for example uh you know hand on the pump the way you guys uh sampled duke of earl which was like the yeah the most poppy like fun song ever you guys turned into a gangster song yeah about [ __ ] hey mugs is a genius i guess he knows how to create that ominous dark you know um anxiety driven music i mean let me tell you i was so influenced by that by that album and your group that you know years later when i became a full-time dj as dj vlad my one of my aliases was vlad the butcher i remember that which which is not one of those things you got like five of those dudes dope no yeah which which is a play-off uh joe niccolo yeah aka the butcher yeah you know i kind of partly based it off that and the gang's in new york i found that cd two days ago i was grilling my old [ __ ] i said oh [ __ ] i should bring i totally forgot to bring it uh yeah man such a such a incredible incredible album once again who's ever listening to this right now if you haven't heard that album go pull it up on spotify right now in which smoke and just zone out to this you will not be disappointed and what's crazy is that mugs made that whole thing off of sb 1200 oh that's that dirty gritty sound but like 10 seconds of sample time 10 seconds of sample time he created all that [ __ ] on that first album and and most of the second album too i don't think he started [ __ ] with the asr and mpc till after the third album or something like that but the first two i believe were straight up sb 1200s okay so this album comes out and it goes platinum not not right away it it took a minute you know because you know our first single well we had a double a side for the first single which was funky feel ones and and uh and kill a man and to be safe sony wanted to put out funky feel one first but someone suggested making it a double a side to give djs the option to flip it if they if they wanted to because they they loved killer man but they weren't sure if if it was going to get played because not exactly a radio single not a radio single right about killing a man right um so funky feel one comes out and it's doing decent yeah not my favorite cyber cells yeah i'll be honest i mean yeah i mean i'll i'll tell you like out of all the cypress hill songs you know that's it's a cool song but it's not one of the strongest it's not kiliman but it was it was safe for sony i could see it's a radio type single yeah it was safe but it wasn't getting that kind of traction you know people [ __ ] with it but it just it it wasn't getting that kind of traction and we were on tour well this while they were putting this [ __ ] out and we did the video for it people thought it was we were on the east coast but we weren't we were downtown l.a you know and making it seem as though we were on the east coast because it was like on some alley cat type [ __ ] right um but you know we get on this tour with naughty by nature who you know they were they're our boys man they constantly looking out for us and you know they they uh had us come opening up for them while they had the number one song in in the nation at the time with opp and uh people started you know dj started flipping over to to kill a man and we start getting traction on the mix show play right you know [ __ ] are playing killing man left and right on the mix shows and sony says to us we need you guys to come off the tour for for a few days to come film a video for kill a man it's getting traction and we end up filming two videos one in red hook which was hand on the pump and then we have eventually filled kiliman throughout different boroughs in new york that's why you know you see us in harlem you see us i believe in brooklyn you see us over there and um on 42nd street and in a couple of other places we were all over new york for that one uh david shady perez uh was the one who directed uh kill a man and he had us going all over the [ __ ] place but um you know and then we get the cameos from you know uh umc's q-tip ice cube and tim dog you know that was all organic none of that [ __ ] was planned so you know this song's starting to bubble it's starting to go and then um chuck d and the bomb squad hear the song and they want to use it for juice right yeah chucky actually talked about that yeah in our interview and it worked the other way we and then you know sony had that void who do you think they fill that void with with def jam left roof house okay yeah with fuji's and cypress hill and yeah it's the way the ball bounces sometime we didn't know that that was chuck yeah making that call for us we had no [ __ ] clue i didn't know and i was already a fan of that song so when i heard it in juice i'm like oh cyprus hill that propelled the song so like we're getting more traction now and more spins and more plays and people starting to talk about cypress hill and then um you know eventually now the video hits and [ __ ] are [ __ ] with it and then juice hits and that [ __ ] propels it like in in such a way that none of us you know were prepared for or or even dreamed of happening we did not know that that that that movie was gonna [ __ ] blow that [ __ ] song way the [ __ ] up i mean it was it was already going you know but that that movie actually [ __ ] just helped it propel to to a degree that we just did not see happening and and things started to change from there and they started talking about us and now we're getting shows and you know our shows are off the hook but it was a trip how it turned around once they flipped to from from funky phil one to uh to kill a man it was a totally different flip we started off on the 200 charts right i believe we were at 170 when we came in we dropped off for like three four weeks and then when kiliman popped off it [ __ ] rose back up and it started like steadily rising back up for the whole year for about a year and a half and and uh when by the time we released black sunday it popped all the way up to number five the album right i mean that first album goes double platinum yeah eventually eventually yeah and i guess ice cubes showed up in that first video of the man video the killer man video and you guys became friends yeah you know he the the thing that uh that was always coming around to me from other cats that that we would uh eventually meet like buster rhymes with my homie and we were really close back in those early days and he would always tell me how um ep the homies from epmd are the ones who put him on to cyprus hill and ice cube told me the same story that epmd told him about us and then ice cube would tell other people about us and we were being talked about it you know amongst people that we [ __ ] respected and we absolutely wanted to get down with and uh you know so we knew that ice cube had been like talking about us to people like yo man these are the these are the new [ __ ] right here and epmd as well um when we were filming the video someone calls us that was friends with somebody that worked with cube or something hey man ice cube's in town he heard you're doing the video he wants to come down or some [ __ ] like that that's so the story goes everybody tells a different story but who knows what the real one was but he shows up and we're like oh [ __ ] cube showed up to our video that was huge to us we were because you know hey it's [ __ ] ice cube you know right this is after he left nwa this is after he had already dropped america's most wanted yes which was his best albums ever he was on fire he was on fire he was one of the titans at the time you know what i'm saying um so we were like it it was like wow this this dude came out to represent us that was it meant a lot to me cosign yeah yeah and then after that you know we became pretty good friends you know and and and not to downplay any of that [ __ ] but q-tip too he [ __ ] would just happen to be walking down the street saw what was up and he got down with us and and we became friends after that too man i mean you know we we we hung out many times during like the jack the rappers and and new music seminars and [ __ ] like that would very much click up together like that not necessarily ice cube but but q-tip and some some of that crew but um yeah i mean cuba and i became friends we were hanging out here you know um he was a big influence to me i always said you know the guys that i looked at to study that i had to be as good as he was one of them you know like i i look to the certain people that i can propel myself to that level you know i i want to i want to get to to that level right there so i got to you know study the the the style study the pocket study the content and then figure out where i'm at in all that you know what i mean so he was always one i looked up to you know like as as one of those guys for inspiration like you know how you captivate [ __ ] you know in in how you're saying it the style you're spitting and he was one of the masters he still is you get him on the right [ __ ] man this [ __ ] goes off well i guess you guys were hanging out one day and this was while he was still beefing with nwa yeah yeah and you guys run into easy e yeah that yeah what happened crazy you know i thought [ __ ] was gonna happen you know i was you were strapped at the time oh yeah i was like a cowboy back then you know i i had a strap on me everywhere um and cube knew that you know like when i went to hang out with him that day you know we gave each other the bro the bro hug and [ __ ] he's like you got a vest on dude oh you had a bulletproof vest yeah it was real in the field for me back then man you know um i was mad cap i i was still you know i was not banging but i was very cautious to know that you know dudes that that were on the other side might have been like very hateful at you know me being successful so as a paranoid ex-gang banger you know i was always strapped up boom had my vest on side arm at all times i didn't give a [ __ ] and when i went to hang out with cube he didn't have any of his bodyguards hanging out when we would hang out so you know [ __ ] i took over the duty if somebody was gonna step to my dude they were gonna have to deal with it maybe he didn't even know that but he knew that i was always strapped in and that i had that i was always ready but that day we go and i can't remember what album is out at this time i think it's lethal injection or something like that and i went over to priority with him and he was introducing me to some of the staff at priority and ben baller was there a salute to my man ben baldwin because we had went back you know we go back before he was with priority and uh you know so i saw him and greeted him gave him the bro bro greet and uh you know we were just hanging out and you know i was talking with some of the staff you know they were asking me cypress hill questions when's the next [ __ ] and all this other stuff and uh so he's there to just pick up you know promo copies of the album and you know to give me one and i'm just hanging out with him right if we come down to the [ __ ] parking garage and as we're rolling to his car easy's rolling up and uh and i notice him right away i'm like oh [ __ ] you know i'm thinking it's about to pop off and i'm about to be right here is he having some own bodyguards with him or he was by himself by himself okay he was by himself well he wasn't by himself he had me yeah and easy was like solo he didn't need to roll around with bodyguards if he didn't want to he had respect both of them did you know what i mean um but at that moment i thought oh [ __ ] i'm about to see a fair one jump off right i thought the fair one was about to happen cause i you know i wasn't gonna jump in that that's that's between them that's between them if anything i'll break it the [ __ ] up but realistically i thought the fair one was about to happen but they handled their [ __ ] like gentlemen they they they they said what's up to each other shook each other's hand that fast that quick and then you know and and it was kind of quiet for a second because i didn't want you know i didn't want to say like hey would you what would happen there because you know they had been boys and you know they're going to handle it how they're going to handle it and ain't my [ __ ] business to to to exacerbate [ __ ] or instagram be like oh you just gonna let that dude ride well because violence had already broken out yeah between ruthless and cube's thing like i remember uh was it called 187 of them yeah told me about some brawl that happened oh yeah uh they had a lot of crazy times those dudes you know and for me you know i was a fan of nwa i was a fan of both and you know as as much as it uh it was painful to see that happen to them because you know they were la group they were southern cali they were representing and to see that happen it was it was sad for a lot of us you know me as a fan of of nwo sad to see that but i was glad for my homie that he was making his own way and popping it off and these dudes in spite of the beef are still nwa and they're still cracking it off so i had respect mad respect for both of them um you know it it was it was a trip being in the middle of that you know because really i was really friends with cube and you know it was just it was a weird situation to be right there in the middle of them but i'm glad they didn't scrap it out because i think that would have made it worse and you know yeah and they eventually you know got together and talked and became cool and i thought that was awesome yeah and then easy died yeah i thought that was that was great that they were able to push all that [ __ ] aside before my man passed away and and reconnect as as brothers not just friends but brothers i mean they had been through a lot and uh you know as as it happens in this business people get in the way you know and sometimes your your own self could get in the way of friendship and [ __ ] like that you know if you're not if you don't have your eye on the ball and you're not paying attention everything certain [ __ ] slips and or you may you know you may overlook something that is important to someone else and then that creates the [ __ ] tension but i mean we all know the story with them and how that happens so you know it's but it happens in this business man groups that start off together you know they don't always end up together well after you guys release your first album house of pain drops their album and now they're part of the whole soul assassins you know there's this whole kind of umbrella organization that you guys form and house of pain is part of this group and like you said everlast was part of isis crew yeah rhyme syndicate but now they came out with these white irish rappers yeah with like an irish flag on their album cover and i guess jump around was originally supposed to be a cypress hill song well you know it it bounced around in the click you know i think it it even i thought it came to me first but i hear that it went to sun dubi first and son you know god bless him but sometimes his work ethic was [ __ ] up you know and he knows i could say that because i could tell you that son that's my boy i love him to death but yeah sometimes he would sit on a beat and mugs would not stand for that [ __ ] if you ain't like getting busy he'll pull that [ __ ] so you know it might have went to sun first um but that's unclear i've always thought he came to me first and then maybe well i guess sindog said that it came to him but he said he couldn't write to it well it it came to me it came to me and i had it for maybe two three weeks or something like that and usually when it comes to me it's coming this me and sen it's not just coming for me because it's for cypress hills so him and i would would [ __ ] with it sometimes he would leave it to me to spark the idea i could not come up for some reason i just could not come up with anything for it like it it would be easy for me to come up with a rhyme for it but the chorus was not coming to me and at that time the most important thing was to write the chorus for first in you know the way we were getting down back then so that we can make the song around the chorus as opposed to vice versa right so i could not come up with [ __ ] to it and everlasting i had developed a friendship at that point man you know because at first you know um we didn't know what to think of each other we were introduced through mugs you know through some mutual people they were hanging out with and but immediately we clicked you know like it was it was one of those things man we became brothers like that and you know getting to know him and getting talk getting to talk to him like he was telling me how he was like getting ready to not even [ __ ] rap anymore right because he had an album that came out that really didn't do anything yeah and he was like ready to [ __ ] quit yeah hip hop and you know get on his guitar what he would eventually do later um he was ready to do that [ __ ] and he said you know when i heard your guys's [ __ ] it drove me back and you know him telling me that like it just connected us off the top so when i couldn't come up with [ __ ] i already knew mugs was was trying to do something with them and you know he would ask for my input on certain things so when i couldn't come up with [ __ ] to this beat i said hey why don't you give it to you know why don't you give it to everlast i think he'll [ __ ] slap this one yeah and fortunately he listened to me and you know everlast [ __ ] cracked it out the park with that [ __ ] yeah and that became the biggest soul assassin's song oh yeah of all time essentially i mean to this day at every con every you know sporting events football game basketball game i think that should be considered one of the top 10 hip-hop songs of all time because i would give it that yeah because realistically like you said any sporting event that song is jumping off and i don't know how many movies they've used it for insane in the brain is right there but not as quite as out there as [ __ ] jump around i mean people think we the people think it's our song to this day i mean we would cover it you know with prophets of rage and we'd cover it with cyprus hill and somehow people think it's our song and but you know in in the family setting yeah you know it belongs to our family but realistically everlast [ __ ] and it's one of the most well known songs anywhere i tell you i've played this song in so many different settings for so many different people and the reaction is the [ __ ] same 30 years later 20 years later whatever it is bro like that song is the jump off and there's very few hip hop songs that have that jump off and everlasting mugs put that together man oh yeah you know what i'm saying i i'm always proud of them two dudes for that [ __ ] because it's like you know it went to show you that everlast had and still does he he has something and whenever that that that thing comes out in the music he's going to bring something to the table that's going to elevate that and they elevated each other with that [ __ ] right there you know incredible song i i you know like i get you i start thinking to myself man if if if uh they had only done more together in that time after that like they they tried to do stuff and stuff like that but you know as every group happens you know you might want different producers different production and you know some things some things that were there on the first album might not be there on the second or third right well by you know i'm just gonna jump around for a second when you guys drop your third album temple's a boom there was a song on there called strictly hip-hop yeah and was it muggs who said it he said house of pain ain't down with us yeah they had a little they had a little um they had a little rub and you know a little disagreement somewhere and that was like the the separation for a while of of house pain from soul assassins me and everlast were remain friends through all that you know because we're brothers you know we've been there for each other and and in times you know that you don't normally see people there for each other you know we are actually like a mirror of each other you know we're different skin different [ __ ] you know ethnic background and all that but our lives are are pretty similar and we connected on that level so when mugs and and him had this little thing going on um you know we said and i tried to stay neutral in that because we knew they were brothers they would eventually get past whatever [ __ ] they were going through and reconnect and squash out whatever little [ __ ] that was happening and it did it eventually happened they talked it out and they put that [ __ ] aside and and the family became one again but it was crazy because people would ask us about that like well you're going to have to ask about that [ __ ] right there because we don't know and you know the the soul assassins family you know cyprus tale house of pain funk dubious but there was also the hooligans right which had a young alcoholist yeah so when you talk about the family tree you talk about like what alchemist is doing these days with freddie gibbs oh yeah and what he's doing with griselda yeah and what he's done with you know jay-z and and nas and all them it all started from cyprus hill in the souls he was groomed for this [ __ ] yeah man uh prize pupil prodigy you know um he started with us at 13 14 years old because james khan's son scott khan was the other member of the hooligans who was on hawaii five-o yeah and many other great things entourage yeah really dope actor those were my boys right so um amanda demi who was amanda shearer at that time uh was was a part of our management team at buzz tone with happy walters amanda comes to me and says i got these two kids from beverly hills um you should take a look at them and you know i think she even might have told muggs first and mugs was like beverly hills hell no what you talking about right and but i i you know i was like you know what [ __ ] it let's let's hear him how you know let's check them out and she introduced me to them they she played me a couple couple songs and uh i i saw some potential there so i you know i met with them and i said you know let's hear what you got right and so something to that degree and uh alchemist started busting and he sounded like a little grand poobah you know like he his his lyricism at 13 14 years old was ridiculous dog i mean i can't tell you he would have out wrapped half of the dudes that were like you know veterans and pros at the time he was really dope as as a kid and scott was pretty dope too he had this energy you know he wasn't maybe as technically as sound as as as al but his energy was like all there like he's he was that guy yeah the driving yeah and then mugs from what i understand help teach them how to produce yeah eventually later you know like hooligans happens first right which doesn't really happen they never really didn't really happen tommy boy wanted to sign them tommy boyd did sign them uh but they never came out yeah we made their album they put out two singles out or maybe one and uh they got scared because they were you know white kids they didn't know how people were going to take them so they put out the one they they put out the one single and scratched the rest but the album was produced by lethal dj lethal of house of pain and lymph biscuit uh the baker boys and um i can't remember one another production group but it was like maybe three different producers that that we brought in to make beats for them and the songs were pretty [ __ ] good it's just that you know at the time they're two little white kids yeah you know and that just was not acceptable so you know like scotty he went got back into the acting and al hung around us you know and he started hanging out with the mugs and our boy jay turner rest in peace um digging in crates um learning how to [ __ ] with the asr learning how to put together beats learning how like a lot of people don't know that um on temple of boom alchemist was doing a lot of the crate digging at that time yeah so at the time we were making temple of boom a lot of people don't know alchemists did a lot of the crate digging with mugs and came up with some of that stuff he didn't necessarily maybe put the beats together but he came up with some of some of the samples and stuff like that along with jay turner you know the three of them worked on on that album extensively at mugs's crib and that's that's where alan got the bug to start producing and uh man who knew yeah that my dude was gonna become a legend decades later decades later i mean you know but that goes to show you like yeah you know we brought him in and and we we um we sort of groomed him for this uh me being an emcee you know was with him in that point and and uh mugs on the production end giving him the game on that point but like he did all his own work every door that he managed to get to and in and do some he put that work in that wasn't because of me or mugs or anyone else that's because of dedication and 100 percent work that he put behind it and that's that's why his name is so revered now yeah you know and it's it's a trip you know because we saw something in in dude because like you know at his age he was just so [ __ ] advanced in terms of of the way he was looking at things and and it's great to see where he's at now man it's it's awesome well then the second album comes out black sunday and uh i feel like production-wise you guys and songwriting-wise you guys were just in your bag at that point such a great album where like every song is just such a perfect song and the first uh single insane in the membrane i was actually in that music video yeah i was uh an 18 year old berkeley kid i used my friend's id who looked nothing like me we went down to the dna lounge in in san francisco and uh man that was the first time i've ever seen you guys live after being such a huge fan and i will show a shot it there's actually like a very split second shot where you see a young vlad blink your eyes yeah don't blink your eyes we'll show the screenshot you know of me and the audience and i was you know just stage diving and everything else like that's that that day yeah no it was great and i remember uh between uh sets well you know because you know when you do a music video you're doing like a bunch of takes yeah and uh you guys had these like kind of uh like bones like in the ceiling you know hanging down from the ceiling yeah i remember send dog was like oh this is chub rock right here oh you know cause i guess because at the time you guys are beefing with chub rock not yeah you might have been the only people ever to to beef with chub rock yeah yeah probably yeah man you got a good memory i do [ __ ] i do um yeah no i i totally remember him saying that now that you say that um the bones were um i think we we got from this dude who was doing [ __ ] for um nine inch nails and you know all of our [ __ ] has all been skull and crossbones so we [ __ ] threw those up as like you know part of our set but yeah you know like insane brain was um the first single which i didn't realize was going to be the first single you know we thought it was a great song for the album but you know we thought there was other songs that could have been single but you know we're like hey we're the artists you know we're we're too close to this [ __ ] maybe sony knows something we don't right so we go with it but what they don't know is it it's it's a it's a slight to chubb rock and it was a slight to kid frost oh really i didn't know about the kid frost part yeah kid frost and and scent dog had a little a little thing happening at the time and uh you know so and then so it was a combination of of something that happened between um frost and send dog and then with chub rock it was uh based off of that yabba-dabba-doo video where um he got a diss y'all he it it seemed like he dissed us like no one ever really talked about it but we heard it and we were like is that a [ __ ] dis time for some lyrics what the [ __ ] is that and that you know it it got me i was like because i was a fan of chubrock and i still am you know what i mean you know it is what it is he was more of a clean cut rapper dope as [ __ ] you know we could not take that away from chub rock to be he was one of the dopest at that time and i i believe his his sword is still sharp if if you listen to tracks he's put out um but you know being insulted by somebody who you get down with that was like a [ __ ] stab right in the heart because we had done shows with with chubrock so for for that [ __ ] to be out there like no no it ain't gonna happen like that we don't we don't allow anyone just to come at us we are not those guys we ain't gonna just sit on our hands and let anyone take a shot at us so whether we were wrong and we we misinterpreted the line um i don't know i i think we were on the money with it because i mean he took my cadence and said time for some lyrics and that to me was like you know are you questioning my ability here all right so i'm we're we're going to shoot it off on you you didn't mention our name but you but you you spit this cadence and and and and said these particular lines so you know we came up with uh with insane in the brain and you know he was at the time referencing himself as the flamboyant one right if he listened to some of some of the songs the fla buoyant one bring forth the fun such and such right so the beginning line on my end was to the one on the flamboyant tip i'll toss that ham in the frying pan right and um it was pretty much from there was insane of the brain or insane the membrane was that cypress's biggest song ever uh yeah i would say yeah at that point for sure or just period yeah when you look back yeah that one catalog that one kill a man rock superstar those three are like the big ones but what's the trip is is um you know for as big as that song is what we always hear the favorite favorite album is even though maybe the second album sold more than the third is the third album everybody loves that [ __ ] third album for some reason temple's a boom yeah okay because this album goes triple platinum yeah and you guys become the first rap group to have two albums in the top ten right at the same time yes so which was uh the first album starts to sell which goes back to what i was saying earlier how you know we dropped off the chart we started off at 170 or something we dropped off and killer man comes out and we're doing all these shows all these great shows and it's building our [ __ ] and people are starting to talk about us so in about a year and a half to a two year span we now create this this um this movement right and we're still on tour and sony comes out of the box and says hey listen you guys got to come off the road and do this [ __ ] next album because your guys's momentum is building we need to get you guys out there quick so as we're making the album the first album is is starting to rise up and by the time we put out um the the second album with the insane in the brain insane in the brain goes number one on the singles and it and it it uh we broke a record at that time we had a record for a long time until maybe drake broke it some years back but you know it was one of the longest existing singles on the hip-hop chart wow as at number one wow okay and then we were the only hip-hop group at that time to have the the two albums so when black sunday comes out because of insane in the brain we enter it number one and by the time and by the time that happens the second album had hit number five so we had one in the number one slot and number five so black sunday at number one in the south title album at number number five crazy we did not think that some [ __ ] like that was capable for us because of who we were and what we were talking about and at the time you know there was people that loved us and then some press that absolutely hated us conservative [ __ ] you know right because you guys were pushing the weed thing oh yeah and you guys performed on saturday night live yeah and you smoked weed live on stage yeah during your saturday night live performance you got banned for life for life a distinction that only a few of us hold and you guys didn't care no we did we did everything without giving a [ __ ] you know because we felt the minute we do is when it's all gonna the energy will flip you know what i mean and but that plan didn't go according to plan you know it was supposed to be that um we were going to do the song up into a point and then somewhere during the end if we ain't going out like that we were gonna smash our equipment like the who because we were doing that on tour that was a thing we're like [ __ ] it we're gonna it cost us some money but again we didn't give a [ __ ] it was about what we wanted people to walk away with and you know we kill the [ __ ] show and then smash our whole [ __ ] set turn tables kongas everything and people would just be an uproar and they love that [ __ ] so we said okay we're gonna bring this [ __ ] to tv real quick and this is what we're gonna do so we all mapped it out we were supposed to at the end smash the equipment light the joints towards the end somehow mugs flipped it and said you know what you know at the beginning of this august says yo we're cypress hill they told us we couldn't smoke this [ __ ] joint blah blah blah but we ain't going out like that boom and he lit it and that set off the song and then everything else didn't go according to the plan we never smashed the set that we were supposed to because he sort of diverted from what the [ __ ] plan was but in his diversion of the plan it was still an iconic moment because he caught it they caught him right at the beginning there was no way to cut away from him so like they would if if we had done it in our original form trash to set then smoke like ah it's like after sex we just [ __ ] were calming our nerves right they could have cut away from us and not got that moment yeah so strategically you know even though we didn't get to wreck the set the way we properly would have him busting out that joint at that time it was a [ __ ] iconic moment and yeah you know we got banned but it's it adds to our legend you know what i mean we got a chance to get on saturday night live and we got ourselves a band that's [ __ ] awesome well you guys go triple platinum with the second album black sunday then couple years later 95 you drop uh your third album temple's a boom right that goes platinum right it's number three on the billboard uh charts and that song had throw you set in the air right which ice cube dropped yeah his song was a similar chorus yeah friday friday which set off the beef with cypress hill and uh an ice cube we covered this during our last interview um and then west side connection got involved in that right you know i just interviewed mac 10. yeah that's my boy man yeah i love that guy yeah interesting story behind that interview yeah for the matches we got stories it didn't come out for like a year because he didn't want it out and finally we put it out so so now you have cypress hill and west side connection beefing uh it does turn violent at certain times yeah it got a little off the hook got a little off the hook uh with ice cube's chain being being taken and you guys showing it on stage but eventually you guys work it all out yeah we worked it out eventually and that was uh you know thanks to mac 10. do you know mac 10 calls me you know cause you know he's a damu and so am i and and you know i thought i thought he realized you know this is all going nowhere in a in a hurry and you know chances are some of our people are going to get tangled up and shit's going to happen and really you know turned serious i mean it you know it was already serious enough that like you know his chain got brought to me and i was petty about it and i [ __ ] flaunted it you know what i'm saying um but it it's at the time it's what had to happen between us i think you know um and it made for a great battle whatever side you think won or whatever it you know it was a clash of the titans and um you know but i was i was very like um it it bothered me because it was somebody that i had a lot of love for that was your friend yeah this was my friend and and and it had it had to happen um but uh yeah you know mac 10 calls me after all these things transpiring says hey man you know let's let's talk about it like man and let's let's figure something out cause this is this is awesome [ __ ] i said you know i couldn't agree more or less you know hey listen i got nothing against you i know you had to you know ride for dude and uh i understand that because if if i'm in your position you know i would have did the same thing you know if someone puts you on you got to be in their corner yeah and so i understood that and and uh you know we were able to squash our [ __ ] and you know he was the the person that um got me a nice cube to talk personally and i think they talked on january 1st 90 1997 and uh you know we had a cool conversation we we explained to each other you know why certain [ __ ] went the way it went and then we squashed it and agreed to never never [ __ ] diss each other again and then we go on to work with each other on various things like uh shaq's superman super friends thing with pete peter gunn and then uh eventually with warren g on get you down or whatever it's called i can't remember the name of that truck grown man [ __ ] yeah and then we did i think we did one more somewhere but you know we've never were able to get together and do something just tim and i without us being featured on somebody else's yeah that was always a dream of mine to happen for for cuba and i to you know after all this [ __ ] to actually do something together like even if it was an ep or something like that just you know showing that all that [ __ ] is truly like right history because not only were you guys friends but um mugs produced uh ice cubes album he did um uh make it rough there was that but then there was also um uh check your check yourself the original version of check yourself before you like yourself which i like better i like better than the the remix is cool i like that it was more popular but the original original is the business yeah to me i agree i agree so then you guys drop your fourth album uh which goes gold right which had dr green thumb on it right which is one of my favorite cypress hill songs called classic love that song yeah love that song thank you i bumped the hell out of that one they wanted me to change it they wanted me to do an insane in the brain style song and change the lyrics change the chorus because they felt they could not market that song and they you know they say they saw it as a waste and i stuck to my guns and you know the credit to sony that you know they would let us crash and burn or win and and have the the victory whatever whatever it be they would let us ride or die on their own decisions they would merely suggest and i told them now i'm not going to change dr green thumb you already have insane in the brain i'm not going to make an insane in the brain part two and you know to their surprise not mine it became one of our cult classics like so if you play insane in the brain at a cypress hill show you get the normal pop people [ __ ] go nuts right when dr green thumb goes on it gets that same [ __ ] pop and it's less popular song it's a less of a popular song and reason being is that they you know obviously radio was still not playing pro weed songs yeah and sony didn't place any ads for it they didn't really get behind it but it grew and it became a huge song in europe like the single blew the [ __ ] up out there okay and it became one of our biggest our biggest songs but in relation to that album that it's on you know sonya at various times thought we were over like certain people at sony thought we were over only donniana really had faith in us you know that was tremendous like these guys can do it if you put the right [ __ ] behind them and obviously you know chris and joe before roughhouse dissolved you know when we had roughhouse in the situation we had two support systems we had roughhouse and their staff and we had sony because of donnie einer whether whoever believed in the project or not and you know as as it happens you know in in with record companies and you know this better than anyone uh situations and staffs change and so people that might have been there for your first two albums that had the formula of how you get this this particular band out there how you break their music and who do you reach out to in terms of like the fan base how to ignite it those people have a formula but you know if they don't get if they don't get raised in in in that company if they don't get raised up or a better position they move on to different places and a lot of these people in key positions move on to different situations so now you got people that aren't necessarily familiar with with how your [ __ ] is broken right or you know how how do we put this album out how do we get this engagement they don't know that because they're new to the [ __ ] fold and sometimes you get the mentality of these new cats while this band's already broke it could sell itself we don't need to do much let's just put it out in the water and it'll [ __ ] sell itself let's focus on jean forte you know what i'm saying um which who doesn't pop off who who doesn't pop off as a matter of fact he goes to jail shout out to john for a massive cocaine bust yeah but they they put a bunch of resources into him and less into us yeah you know what i mean more efforts and and that was people that were a part of the team to move cyprus hill's next album and so when you have that type of mentality you figure a group can sell itself you're not putting as much resource and as much effort so with that album and the fact that we didn't want to change dr green's thumb they're all just like all right well let them do their thing and it went gold it didn't it didn't do platinum like the the three previously before them so they definitely thought we were [ __ ] over at that point right so then the next album comes out in 2000 right skull and bones which had rock superstar and rap superstar right the the rap version of that same song which ended up becoming one of your biggest songs once again and that song does 1.5 million i mean not not the song but the album yeah and so you know you have this drop that happened here you know the last album the temple boom did 1.5 and then this one goes gold and then this next one does 1.5 so it went to show you that the staff that we had on on that previous album they weren't motivated but the staff that came in for skull and bones they seen what we had done in terms of creating this album that had half hip hop orientated songs like that raw grimy mug style [ __ ] and then the stuff that was more hybrid with with rock and in hip-hop with metal and hip-hop whatever you want to call it the alternative right so you had one department that was motivated because of those particular songs and then the alternative department motivated because [ __ ] they got something that they could put on to the k rocks in the the the stations like that right so everybody was excited so they did a master push so then this album does great you know and they're like oh [ __ ] sniper what the hell we what were we thinking their [ __ ] franchise we got a [ __ ] push push push and that album does really well you know and then like it always happens the next album comes and they sit on their hands because you know they're resting on the successes of the last one well you know we don't really need to do much let's just do this this that and right this is stone raiders yeah and which uh didn't crack the top 50 yeah the charts for the first time ever yeah yeah and that was a tough one that was a tough one for us because we knew that that album had bangers on it but you know we never really made albums in terms of or made songs in terms of getting singles we were lucky to have singles we were lucky that that that sony saw singles in our songs because we were always just trying to make dope albums and we didn't give a [ __ ] if they went platinum or not we just wanted to make dope albums but you become accustomed when you hit this [ __ ] this standard so when we didn't hit it on the album you know we were really [ __ ] pissed off because we felt like sony was like giving up on the push and now a whole other new team was there and now our our um our our main support system in roughhouse is not there so it's like we really have less support backing up our plays here so you know with that drop off you know we knew okay well you know our time with sony may be coming to an end because like if if some if if they don't if only donnie is seeing it and no one else is seeing it then you know maybe you know it's it's it's time to [ __ ] you know leave the leave the [ __ ] leave home well right around that time in 2000 that's when everlast and eminem start to beef yeah and uh that was tough too i mean apparently you know the story goes that eminem didn't acknowledge everlast in a hotel room or in a hotel lobby i think it was a hotel lobby in an elevator an elevator because i think it was uh for the wake up show they were both going and coming from the wake up okay and uh everlast ends up doing the eardrums pop remix with dilated peoples where you took some shots at eminem eminem drops i remember and then quitter and apparently everlast had a response record yeah to eminem yeah where he was actually singing yeah as opposed to rapping right and you heard this song um he didn't let me hear the song he he he he he let me hear some words from the song like he sung me some lines from the song and it it it was pretty [ __ ] dope like he didn't let me hear the song in full because it wasn't all the way done but he gave me the [ __ ] idea of it and uh had this song come out it would have [ __ ] splashed heavy because i mean you know everlast is uh you know they're both exceptional [ __ ] mc's you know but i think that people were maybe um underestimating whatever last was capable of because by that time he was doing whitey four yeah he was singing more yes he was singing more than rapping at that time so you know you you sort of begin to doubt an ability of this of this dude because he's doing more of this than what you know him to be doing and i'll just tell you he's one of the mcs that you cannot [ __ ] around and underestimate because you know he'll light a major fire um but he didn't end up putting that song out which is probably for the best because it would have it would have exacerbated [ __ ] and stretched that beef out longer because the [ __ ] up part about it is they both [ __ ] loved each other you know they both had enormous respect and love for each other you know like everlast was like man hell yeah another white kid that's [ __ ] killing it and you know everlast i mean uh eminem to tell it he'll say that one one of his influences or one of the guys he looked up to was everlast so of course it was it was just miscommunication and you know the timing of it was all [ __ ] up and i you know fortunately i was able to get in between it and squash it out oh so you got them talking together i didn't get them talking but i got them to squash it okay you know what i mean like um they both called me and said hey man can you talk to your boy i mean with that with eminem you know it was more like we never really talked on on a phone conversation it was more in person and i talked to him on this tour uh or on at the show that we did i said hey you know he don't really he don't hate you like that dudes you know like this is all a misunderstanding you know i think y'all have a respect for each other there that hasn't been said but like you know y'all shouldn't be beefing let's just squash this [ __ ] out you know yeah you guys are both i love both you guys and i don't want to see you guys [ __ ] beefing like this and fortunately you know they because they had that respect for each other and it was a misunderstanding they were able to [ __ ] squash that [ __ ] and i remember seeing never last like cheer am on for something that he put out like a little bit later after that that it was like some some dope [ __ ] he put out i can't remember what song it was but you know he gave him props on that and to me you know i always thought they should have made you know some songs together even if it was just one it would have been [ __ ] oh yeah huge they could still do it yeah you know i'm sure both of them are going to watch this interview i know eminem watches vlad hey listen guys do the song and then feature me with you there you go and let vlad tv premiere yeah there we go [ __ ] let's go let's go well you guys drop a few more albums in 2004 you dropped till death to us part yeah which was our last album on sony yeah then 2010 you did rise up right which was with emi and you know the two albums those last two um they were tough you know with with with the the until death do us part album we knew it was our last album with sony and you know we knew that that based off of the album beforehand that you know chances are this album's probably gonna not do as well as that one maybe it does but you know the way that things that the way that things happen in the industry especially when the label stops pushing is that there's a [ __ ] drop you know what i mean um i think our music went past what they were looking for in artists at that time and they were just looking to fulfill the deal and do right by us because we actually owed them one more album but i talked them into letting that particular album be the last or it was actually a greatest hits album or some [ __ ] like this because you know we just we saw man the support was fleeting at that point and we didn't want to dead our group on sony that would have been [ __ ] horrible now with emi it was more out of necessity like it had been six years we hadn't put anything out and that was the the album that we did mostly without mugs you know muggs was uh working on several other [ __ ] things at the time and we we were pressed i mean you know it was like [ __ ] you know we either come out with something right now or we didn't come out with anything else yeah so we did rise up and i took production duties on myself i've made some of the beats there but i played the executive producer role on on on that one and and brought other producers to the table on that one and you know it was with emi and and you know they were bringing it in through snoop dogg you know because you know we have this relationship with snoop and snoop wanted to be the one to bring cyprus hill to emi unfortunately it didn't work with dmi because they just did not know what the [ __ ] to do with cypress hill you know they tried but i don't think they knew all the bases to touch and some of the things that i suggested that you know they they were interested in doing them but they just never got around to doing them and i don't know if it's because we signed a one-off album and didn't sign like you know a multiple deal album like you know normally you would do we signed one off so you know for those they're only going to spend so much money and so much effort into putting a [ __ ] you know putting out the album if they're not getting you for a long term yeah you know what i mean then the next album two years later elephants on ask elephants comes back we bring mugs back and you guys he does all the production and he does all the production on that yeah which was it was uh it was interesting to do that album because it you know like he's a he's a different sort of motivator mugs man you know he went back to the style like when like it could be considered like when we didn't have [ __ ] so let's just say you have this big studio but you got this little [ __ ] pre-production room that you know you do all the the the the beginning stuff on and then you take it to the big room and put all the bells and whistles on where some groups would start off in the big room and just do everything there right you know he had us in the small room where it was hot and gritty and [ __ ] you know much like when we were working in the old days you know what i'm saying and it brought this this vibe like we were you know just starting out again and uh but it was it was cool because he got out of us what i feel like he needed to get out of us in in in terms of this particular album he wanted to do it different than than most albums the the style of writing the content and and the delivery on some of the [ __ ] and and obviously his production because it was you know i'm going to say that temple boom was probably the most dark dusty album that we had in in all of our albums but this one was darker a little dustier but with more psychedelic sensibility to it yeah and that's well it's you know i'm looking on the wikipedia page that's the ninth album but then there was some other stuff yeah there's stuff in between grand or sexy deals and stuff like that so that's really like about 10 11 albums uh yeah yeah that that it yeah it should be 10 or 11 11 it should be exit and and the greatest hits deal that we did after yeah so eleven eleven albums eleven albums with some are they crazy like looking back and say wow we were signed for eight do you know we had one of them old school hip-hop record deals where they signed you for you forever in life right they think that you're not gonna fulfill this deal one it's it's a gamble that they sign you for these eight albums but either way it's a write-off right so you probably most groups that got signed to that deal made two albums at the most if that yeah if that there's you know hand of a handful of us from the golden era that actually made more than that yeah but i think we're probably the only hip-hop group that stood on one label all that time and fulfilled the deal we didn't get dropped too short i think might have been the other one yeah we didn't get dropped and we didn't buy out of our contract we actually fulfilled our deal and left amicably and and in a good place with sony well and then in uh 2016 you form prophets of rage which i forgot was a public enemy song yeah with chuck d and um members of rage against the machine or is it just is it just tom morello uh were there no no with profits of rage band it was um three guys from from rage against the machine three guys in rage brad wilk the drummer uh timmy c the bassist and tom morello morello the general and commandante yeah um and then there was lord and chuck from pe check d and myself yeah and then from what i understand this hit like number one on the rock charts yeah i mean i never you know with that bad i never really kept up on on what it was doing in terms of of charts or sales and stuff like that because to me it was more of a platform with these guys to talk about [ __ ] that i don't normally talk about whether it be my solo stuff or or with uh with uh cypress hill or any of the various groups i've been in like serial killers and psycho realm and [ __ ] like that i mean psycho realm similarly you know we talked about things sort of like with profits of rage but it it two different [ __ ] deals but you know it was uh it was a trip to see the response of this group because you either loved us or you hated us you know um there there was people that maybe didn't give two shits about us they're like i don't give a [ __ ] about politics so i ain't even tripping off of what these guys are talking about i want to listen to this party [ __ ] over here but um you either loved or you hated that band you know and uh we got a lot of love out there though it was a it was a crazy experience to to put these group of guys together you know on paper we knew it worked it looked good on paper yep rage against the machine cyprus so public enemy [ __ ] looks good right that's a tour yeah let alone the band you know that's a that's a stadium show in a lot of different countries yeah and we started rehearsing uh for it in secret and at first it was like you know like oh [ __ ] what do we what what are we what are we doing you know saying is this really the the move could we really pull this off and then i think in the second or third week of rehearsals we hit a stride we're like oh [ __ ] something's coming together here because it was uh at the beginning it was us doing rage against the machine songs because we felt like you know tom and and the other guys felt like [ __ ] this is the time for this music because of all the [ __ ] that was going on it was around the 216 2016 campaign and they felt like this message needs to be out there and at the time you know zach and them weren't doing stuff so you know to get this message out there tom thinks let's form ban another band and let's go play this [ __ ] because this music is needed right now so you know he calls chuck well at first he calls the other the other two guys tim and brad then they call chuck chuck is you know from what he told me he was kind of halfway in and then when they talked to me that's when he committed fully you know because chuck and i had always talked about doing [ __ ] together but you know how it is you know artists with with schedules and and pe works a lot cypress hill works there there was very little time for us to find something to do but tom caught us at a time where neither of our bands were were like actively touring at that moment and you know oh [ __ ] i was like i was like yes before he even asked me i knew i had inside information you cannot hide nothing from dr green thump now i get the call like hey these dudes are gonna call you i'm like get the [ __ ] out of here they're not gonna i've heard this talk before you know because we talked about it many years ago forming something but it just didn't happen audio slave happened instead and you know so i was like yeah right yeah okay they're gonna call me sure they're gonna call me okay i'll talk i'll call you when they call me dog about an hour later i get a [ __ ] call from brad hey his uh or a text has morello hit you yet i'm like no is he supposed to i was kind of playing stupid and use it yeah yeah yeah yeah let me know when he does i'm like all right cool and right then and there that was the validation right i was like okay yeah these [ __ ] are gonna call me so it was like yes before he even asked me because i saw the potential in in what it is they were trying to do i could say something that normally people don't hear me [ __ ] saying and again you know when we we started getting our our legs on us in terms of playing the rage songs and then we actually played those those shows where we mixed up rage against the machine songs with with um cypress hill and public enemy songs and then creating one new song people were [ __ ] like they reacted to it like crazy and we had this chemistry on stage so we felt like hey man let's make this more than just this happening let you know us playing these songs because this is happening we have a chemistry let's try to lock that down in the studio so we got into the studio and we we found out that we had chemistry there so that's what prompted the ep and then you know eventually the the album and it was fun man you know because everybody had some great creative input to to throw in and that that's why you know we had such fun making that first album and and it was fun being with them on tour because we were all just sort of locked in on you know one one particular goal which is go out there and say something to these people and wake them up but rock the [ __ ] out of them and we did that well and then last year you guys get a a star on the hollywood walk of fame yeah the first latino hip-hop group to have a star how does that feel being an la native to walk down hollywood boulevard and to step on your own star being you know that's something that's so aspirational yeah like you know you have all the greatest hollywood music people are all on this on the street and here you are walking on your own star it was surreal you know to be honest i mean you know we grew like you said we grew up out here and and uh walking those streets you see those stars of the people that had been there you know 20 years before you even saw that goddamn star you know what i'm saying you see that and you're like you know if you're an artist or an entertainer of any kind yeah you you might visualize or dream one day your star would would be there but hell we didn't think about that because we knew exactly who we were and what we were talking about and the type of [ __ ] that you know that we were facing throughout the industry so that was something that we did not see coming you know but it was it was great that we got acknowledged and the fact that uh so many [ __ ] fans showed up for that and george lopez an exhibit that came and spoke on her behalf and chuck d who was there and my man berner who came to represent there was so many that i did not see would would show up you know for us there you know because you just never know how those things are going to turn out and you know the fans were there and and some of our our peers that we love and look up to they were there and and uh it was it was a great moment man i mean you know the fact that we got recognized through throughout all the [ __ ] that we had to go through right and and uh the ups and downs i mean you know because without success i mean with success there is no success without the ups and downs of course and and uh you know that was just one of the acknowledgments that we got for all those those ups and downs man and it's it's a trip that we have it and uh you know one day i'll my daughter was there to see it that was key man you know my son he was working that day but my daughter your son couldn't get off work that day no he couldn't get off uh that's whack bastards wouldn't let him up but um you know they could they could you know visit the star and see the accomplishment there and inspire them you know whether it doesn't have to necessarily be that they want their star if that's what they're shooting for yes and that will support them with whatever they want to do but like you know just that the the the main um thing they should take away from it is it's the work you put into whatever it is that you're you're trying to do yeah we uh in spite of the ups and downs in spite of like the walls put up in obstacles that that were put up in front of us you know we were able to get around them because we decided we're going to put work behind this [ __ ] and not take no for an answer and be unapologetic for the things that we do and most of all be responsible and accountable for some of the [ __ ] we do because yeah that's a part of it you know well i mean here you are almost 30 years ago rapping about weed when no other rappers were really doing that on that level and now 2020 marijuana is legalized in how many states now i'm going to say it's probably uh the last count was 17 but maybe maybe it's 22 now maybe yeah there's some that have medical legislation like we had here before it got legal where it's not necessarily legal but they have medicinal um it's not recreational yet but i mean though everything is a work in progress i mean everywhere is opening up even in the midst of the pandemic i mean you know virginia just flipped some of their their cannabis laws over there to to be more uh you know to soften up on on cannabis yeah laws over there i think you could possess up to an ounce now whereas before you oh yeah going to [ __ ] jail oh yeah i mean it just kind of shows how cyprus hill was on the right side of history we tried to be we didn't know that that you know yeah i mean because let's just keep it 100. in 1991 if you would have told me hey marijuana is going to be legal in the united states just like amsterdam he's going to be like yeah okay oh yeah america nah it'll it'll never ever happen you know we all and look we all wished and hoped and and imagined that it could right you know what i mean but it took the people to put the work in you know we inspired some of the people that put the work in in terms of showing up to those rallies and [ __ ] you know getting those signatures and the petitions signed and all that stuff you know it it inspired a lot of people and along with us the other artists that they chose to put cannabis on their back too you know we all did our service for for the legalization of cannabis and and you know we i don't think we thought it would it would be as soon as it came but we knew it was possible it was just when are people people gonna get past the stigmas like the the false propaganda well now you actually have marijuana stocks mostly mostly in canada yeah or all in canada which is a trip yeah um did you yourself being that you were so much ahead of the curve and one of the spokesman faces of it did you really financially benefit from marijuana becoming legal whether it's getting involved in dispensaries or the growing operations or getting early stocks or whatever else did you really benefit or though other people benefit and you're just happy to be part of the movement well at first no first we did not benefit um but that wasn't what it was for it was it was basically for the movement to be pushed forward definitely i benefited later after i opened up the shops um how many shops uh six now six dispensaries wait is it six it's uh we have one in los angeles close to downtown one is sylmar one in cathedral city in palm desert um san francisco sacramento and humboldt county what are they all called dr green thunder green thumbs yeah okay yeah you know so once that happened yeah you know what our our company is making money via the via the um the shops but like the initial you know in in the beginning yeah no it was more work than anything and it still worked now because of of the way things are but realistically oh yeah i mean because from what i understand and you see this with a number of dispensaries that go out of business i heard is a very very rough business to be in it is if you don't have a brand right you know it's like it's not like you're selling weed illegally where it's just you know half of it is profit or whatever right with all the taxes and all the hurdles oh yeah security and everything else like that um you know reggie wright jr is in prison right now because his dispensary got shut down and he tried to basically keep moving weed under the table which is why he's in prison right now that's the problem though is it if you have a um a licensed dispensary you don't want to put it at risk by doing all the other [ __ ] yeah and you know um that is something that we always have to keep in mind as as operators and owners of of the dispensaries who's doing what you know that's why security and and you know all of our dispensaries have all these camera systems so that we can keep track of what everybody's doing because you know you don't want any strikes against your license because it is expensive to operate especially if you're not vertical right vertical means that you have all these things that yeah you're radiant packaging it you're selling it you're marketing you're growing it growing you're producing it you're you're you're manufacturing your packaging you're distributing are you guys are you guys actually growing as well or no okay so you have your own farm oh yeah i mean yeah i mean that was before we had the before we had the dispensaries we had the farms i mean we've been in the game for so long as cultivators given my team you know um and we created the dr green thumb brand out of the out of the products we were cultivating and stuff like that eventually it turned from that to you know being cultivators of this of of cannabis products to owning a shop and being shop owners and then putting our licensed cannabis because our cultivations is our lives our cultivations are licensed too so at every aspect man um when you're when you're vertical and you don't have the hedge fund money or the financing and stuff because people are putting billions oh yeah yeah i remember berner had this video where there was like this operation i think in vegas yeah that looked like a 100 million dollar operation it had its own like it's damn like a city right where they're growing yeah massive amounts exactly and you know it costs money to grow that massive amount and it and it takes a distribution system that's consistent yeah to get rid of all that product because if you don't have the the the path to to get rid of that product and put it into all these licensed stores um you're sitting on that product and it has an expiration date and if you don't sell it you take a [ __ ] huge loss now what happens is that [ __ ] could be fire but if no one knows who produced it if no one knows the brand no one's gonna [ __ ] with it until somebody comes and says you know what i'll white label that for my brand i remember when the dispensaries first started out you'd go to a dispensary and it'd be a big jar right and he'd be like yeah i want that og kush i want that purple i want whatever now you go into any dispensary and it's all prepackaged sealed a certain brand name yeah associates it's not like a type of weed it's a brand name yeah well it'll have the type of weed yeah but it's still genetic i like it highlights the brand new season is a brand that i use or um you know there's a few other brands that i like but it's like it's really changing yeah did you invest in weed stocks at all or not really no [ __ ] that why is that they're not because because i remember you know me being a big stock investor and i have vlad stocks and everything when i first launched about a year and a half ago the main thing was like what wheat stock should i buy wheat stocks wheat stocks wheat socks and then all of it came crashing down yeah i i got you know i got money in stocks too so like i'm very in tune to that [ __ ] but the problem is with weed stocks is i didn't find them stable enough yet you know it's still a new interest industry yeah and that's why i never invested i just don't know enough about the industry to throw my money in it's still like the cannabis industry yeah you know in terms of black market has been here god knows how right right and it's still here and it's still here but in terms of the the white market the legal market um it's still new in spite of being around for what five six seven years some 10 some shop owners have had their their their [ __ ] for 10 years but this was before that it was actually legal you know what i mean and uh it's it's uh it's one of those things where you have to build a brand otherwise all that [ __ ] you know like um the the stability in in cannabis stocks is is to me it just ain't there because this this this legalized business hasn't even been around 10 years yet and and to to create this stability so when it came about i knew a bunch of people that were investing and they were like hey man you should get down like you go ahead yeah look i mean for everyone who's watching if be real is not investing in weed stocks you probably shouldn't be either i mean it's a it's a gamble you can you can you can go out there and put your money in some of these stocks and and hold and sit on it you know what i mean and you you're not going to make money fast that is first for certain but for me i'm not willing to risk that until you know it's legal everywhere in the united states right because berner said the same thing burner doesn't have money in wheat stocks either he's one of the big weed guys as well [ __ ] his old cookies listen when when it's only you know when the the the main stocks are up in the canadian [ __ ] trade uh stock market and not necessarily in the american stock market i mean why why would we do that i mean you could still make money in the canadian stock market but realistically in the united states we don't have full legalization yet so for me it would be ridiculous to invest in any stock until it's legal nationwide yeah you know it's legal nationwide in canada that's why it's on the stock market there you know um so i mean if you want to get into some stocks maybe the canadian ones but even then i you know i'm not taking that chance until we're legal here all across the board and then you know i'll i'd have to do research on what stock is the right one in the cannabis trade there you have it uh be real such an honor to really sit down and do a proper interview for the first time and you know you and i have spoken about this before when i first decided to seriously become a dj the very first mixtape i did yeah was a soul assassin i remember that yeah where i took all my favorite cypress hill songs psycho realm songs fun dubious songs no i don't know well yeah songs and i remember i put it out and this was actually the first internet mixtape yeah honestly there were no mixtapes on the internet during that time i took it i mixed it and i put it up as an mp3 file on djvlad.com which is no longer around and i remember people were like oh yeah man we bumped this in in sweden at our rec center all the time and that's what really you know because i loved the music so much which inspired me to make that and from there that's how i started my journey as dj vlad which eventually led to where i am today with tv but it just goes to show how much love i have for what you guys created you know and i've always heard that and i've seen it from right right when i heard from you heard about you yeah before we ever met her yeah and and seeing what you were doing man and then you know to eventually meet and become friends and then see like each other's paths you know go where they where they have gone man it's it's uh i mean [ __ ] hip-hop is a great thing man you know it connected all of us in different ways you know and in different times and a lot of us are still connected you know what i mean and we got gotta have you come down on the dr grade dumpster i'm there charlie i've already i've already been on there before and i'll come again we gotta have you come on the new one the podcast yeah let's do it word up man and thanks for having me man of course be real cypher sale man hell yeah

Channel: djvlad

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Id: R6T7c9lM6fE

Length: 143min 46sec (8626 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 13 2020