1988-B-RealLead rapping
DJ MuggsTurntables
Sen DogRapping
Eric BoboDrums1994-
Cypress Hill formed in South Gate, California - just outside of Los Angeles - in 1988. The group signed a deal with Columbia Records in 1989 after the label heard their first demo. Black Sunday, Cypress Hill's second album, came out in 1993 and went straight to #1 on Billboard's Top 200 chart. It spent two weeks at the top spot, displacing Zooropa by U2 and getting knocked off by the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack.
Cypress Hill was banned from playing Saturday Night Live in 1993 after they smoked marijuana onstage and trashed the some drums while performing the song "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That."
In 1996, Cypress Hill appeared on The Simpsons, performing at a fictional festival called Homerpalooza. The episode poked fun at Lollapalooza and Woodstock 1994, two festivals the hip-hop group had recently headlined.
Cypress Hill took their name from a line in a song from the 1982 movie Wild Style called "Rammellzee And Shock Dell At The Amphitheatre," where Rammellzee raps:
Well I'll rope you to a decimal
When a shaolin crawls down the Cypress Hill
Sen Dog lived on a street called Cypress Avenue, so that line caught their ear and they decided to use Cypress Hill as the band name.
Cypress Hills, the reference in the song, is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, which led some listeners to think they were from that area.
They have long advocated for marijuana reform, an unpopular position in America back in the early '90s when the "War On Drugs" was still being fought, filling prisons with pot smokers. They were aligned with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and often hit their talking points during interviews, explaining that pot was legal until the 1930s and that hemp was used to make paper.
"Weed is something that enhances life," Sen Dog told Complex in 2012. "I do everything better when I'm high."
Cypress Hill attempted to gain a larger audience in 2000 by releasing a guitar-driven single called "Rock Superstar." The group also joined punk bands MxPx and The Offspring on tour the same year.
In July 2008, Cypress Hill performed at a charity event at the House of Blues in Chicago. Proceeds from the concert went to the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness.
In August 2009, Cypress Hill released a new single called "Get 'Em Up" through iTunes. The song was featured on the video game Madden 2010.
From 2016 to 2019, B-Real was in a supergroup called Prophets Of Rage with Chuck D from Public Enemy and members of Rage Against The Machine.
Cypress Hill are often cited as the first big Latin rap stars, although DJ Muggs is Italian-American. Sen Dog was born in Cuba, and B-Real is of Mexican-Cuban descent. Muggs grew up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Queens, New York, so many assumed he was Latin. His East Coast influence helped the group stand out musically from other West Coast rap acts.
DJ Muggs was also House Of Pain's producer. You might notice some similarities between "
Jump Around" and Cypress Hill's big hit, "
Insane In The Brain."
In 1992 they won the Billboard Music Award for Best Rap Singles Artist, beating out Das EFX, Kriss Kross and Arrested Development.
Percussionist Eric Bobo joined the group in 1994. They met in 1992 when Cypress Hill opened some shows for the Beastie Boys, whom Bobo was performing with.
