Cypress Hill

I really enjoyed the production to this album which feels like the limk between gangsta rap and artists lile Tribe and the Beasties with a latino element.

Despite the lack of ‘Insane in the Membre’, the one CH track i actually remember this is s really strong offering

I sort of feel like I probably shouldn't like this album. But I did.

Loved the sampling, the funkiness of it, the flow of the rapping. I am however massively unhappy to discover Insane In The Brain has not made it to the generator. Should really be a 3.5 but it's not a 3 so:

4/5

Gangster Rap is where I draw the line on this list. I get that this is important music for a lot of people….im just not one of them.

The sound that plays beginning at 0:30 in The Phuncky Feel One is the sound of a Pikmin dying. Cypress Hill is admittedly been a blind spot in my knowledge of classic hip hop. This album holds up. Very clearly B-Real’s voice inspired the likes of Danny Brown. Lyrical content tends to be somewhat shallow here to the point where it tends to get repetitive towards the end here. Still fun. Favorites were How I Could Just Kill A Man, The Phuncky Feel One, and The Funky Cypress Hill Shit.

I feel bad because I think my average rating for hip hop is pretty low compared to how I think I enjoy the genre. But that's a factor of this list having a lot of old-school hip hop prior to gangsta rap (Which is about when I started enjoying hip hop with the more intricate and complex rhyme schemes that flow better).

And unfortunately, this is still that old-school flow with the more sparse, early 90's sound. So yeah, just not really doing much for me.

3.62

It's got quite a good vibe to it, and it was an easy listen.

Eh.

you will never be the Pharcyde

Not too many notes, a great rap debut with nothing crazy.

Probably nostalgia from my teen years.

Het album Cypress Hill is wat simpel en rommelig. Het gaat inhoudelijk niet heel veel verder dan het commentaar op de politie en de odes aan hun rookwaar. Muzikaal is het nog wat kaal. De liefde voor muziek straalt er nog niet van af. Tja, ik kan het de heren niet kwalijk nemen. Ze waren nog jong en ontdekkende.

En dat ontdekken dat hebben ze gedaan. Na dit album leverde ze het 5 sterren album, dat de basis van de band definieert: Black Sunday. Met de hit Insane in the Brain.

Vanaf daar werd hun muzikale hokje steeds wat ruimer. Geen ander genre was te gek. Waarbij ze hun unieke geluid toch telkens overeind wisten te houden. Dat geluid is niet alleen de ijzersterke rapper B-real met zijn uniek stemgeluid en rapstijl, maar ook de muzikaal creativiteit die niet ten koste gaat van de toegankelijkheid.

Cypress Hill leverde bijvoorbeeld nog een 5 sterren-album Skulls & Bones. Met als tweede helft een combinatie met stevig gitaarwerk. En wederom een flinke hit met de combinatie Rap Superstar en Rock Superstar.

Even later werken ze samen met Rusko en leveren ze een paar stevige Dubstep nummers. En niet lang geleden stonden met een symfonie-orkest op de planken.

Cypress Hill zijn veelzijdige muziekliefhebbers die voor ieder wat wils bieden. En dit debut toont daar niets van. Ja, het had invloed en ja, het is best ok. Maar met enkel dit album in de lijst doe je de band heel erg te kort.

Not the worst rap/hip-hop, but not great. I’m happy I don’t have to listen to this again. 2/5

I'm surprised by how boring I found the album. Everything just ran together; there was nothing that stood out. It wasn't awful, but I've heard better elevator music.

I have never felt so out of place as I did listening to this.

I am completely not the audience for this.

I can appreciate it as an album. But I just don't connect with it

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

I’m at a 4.

This is my first time hearing anything by Cypress Hill that’s not “Insane in the Brain”, and for the most part, I liked it. Lots of flows here that feel familiar / close to “Insane in the Brain”, sure, but the longer the album went, the less I felt compelled to compare it to my only point of reference. This album & these guys have their own distinct identity outside of that track, and it’s showcased very well here. Their Latin-American experiences shine through well, and it gives the album a little more flavor than some of the more generic ‘90s rap that exists out there. I think B-Real & Sen Dog have great rapping voices (especially B-Real), and their flows are super fun. They find a melody on most of these sample-heavy beats, excellently produced by DJ Muggs (especially for ‘91), and as a whole, I really like listening to them.

I wish it were easier to comprehend them, and that’s really where my single issue lies in the album, one that builds up over the course of the whole thing to pull this down to a 4 for me. A super fun 4, mind you, but one that just gets a little tiring by the end of it. B-Real & Sen Dog DO have great rapping voices, but the vocal filters they use on a number of the tracks start to feel overplayed by the end of it. Their flows are super fun, although for my ears, they’re arguably a little too fast to truly understand behind these sample-heavy beats, which are excellently produced, but not super well *mixed* – a lot of the time, the vocal filters mix with the reverb in the beats that sort of muddles the soundscape of both, eventually leading to an effect where it’s hard to hear the nuances in either. It wouldn’t be as big of a deal if it weren’t for these being very lyric-heavy tracks, including some with Spanish lyrics. It’s genuinely hard to follow along & capture the essence / basic intent of some of these tracks since they’re moving really fast whilst being pretty witty, and that includes the English ones, for the record. It makes each track feel fun in the moment, but for my brain, not as memorable long-term as it could be.

I understand that maybe for ‘91, and for an album that’s more of a smoker’s record to throw on while you do the doobie, the lyricism matters a lot less than how the soundscape makes you feel. I did generally get the *feeling* of each track, and I did catch a flow state a few times while following along to their flow to the best of my ability. This is a delightful 46 minutes to listen to; I just wish they had made it a little easier to truly *get* what they’re saying, and that’s why I think I’m gonna be at a 4 here. I do think the momentum of the album / super fast pace between tracks doesn’t leave much room for the listener to breathe, and that pace did catch up with me by the end of “The Funky Cypress Hill Shit”; that also plays a factor here. Overall, it’s a super enjoyable record, I’m glad it’s on the list, and it’s one I’d recommend. I hope it can get up to a 5 for me in the future, since there’s really not a bad track here. For now, I’m just at a 4.

I like this a lot. B-Real’s nasal delivery is instantly iconic, and the beats DJ Muggs spins are catchy, if not sometimes a bit repetitive.

Favorite track(s): How I Could Just Kill a Man, Real Estate, Psycobetabuckdown

90s hip hop. Was okay, but nothing impressive. But it did not seem to be misogynistic like the rest of hip hop at the time