INTERVIEW: Cypress Hill, Rutgers University, NJ
- Scott Williams
"Put me in chains; try n' beat my brains. I could get out but the grudge remains..."
Below the stage, and withstanding the furious ice of B-Real's stare, that solitary Rutgers cop must feel under appreciated. Isolated from his law enforcement peers and surrounded by a good four-thousand incensed moshers, he's also wondering who he's supposedly protecting, and whether he needs backup to cover his own ass. Tight-lipped and sweaty, the police officer returns Real's stare, only to be clocked in the temple by an unseen Doc Marten shod foot. Smirking like the Godfather after a hit gone well, Cypress Hill's NFL-sized front man launches into death threat number one.
"This pig harassed the whole neighborhood. This pig worked at the station. This pig killed my homeboy, so that fuckin' pig went on a vacation..." Stoned is the way of the walk, and Cypress' tales are laced with the ineffaceable credibility of a late Goya done South Central style. Like most street-smarts, though, their tough barks belie inherent wisdom. However, the riotous teenage mob, a motley crew of mostly middle-class white kids, is caught in the moment.
Summoning enough collective anger to adequately complement B-Real's fatal nasalities, the group attemps some facsimile of a gang rumble. Or, perhaps, to legitimize their collective desires to be "down wit the homies", this is the regularly scheduled meeting of the well-fed young and restless and the well-armed. Carnal, dangerous, and more alive than CNN combat footage in Mogadishu, or suburban New Jersey street corners, here is the kind of "in your face" rights of passage that makes whitebread American culture seem not only bland, but stale and moldy. Oh yeah, Tipper Gore and the "Mothers of Prevention" think this genre is easy prey, but the kids ain't havin' it.
"You know, there's all this talk about kids bein' screwed up over our lyrics n' shit, but, let me tell you, people's been screwed up for years
-for centuries. I mean its being human. Look at it; why did Jesus supposedly come here in the first place?", Sen brands with acid, then DJ Muggs continues, "...most muthafuckas don't write about what they live; we do. I make, like, muthafuckin' action records. Arnold Schwarzeneggar is a super star, but they criticize us, you know what I'm sayin'?"Later, these champions of cheeba, no casual fans of the powers of hemp, roll onto the stage a whimsical, yet awesome four-foot long doobie. Easily of Biblical proportions, maybe it should have been a golden spliff that Moses found the Israelites in joyous reverence of, after receiving the Ten Commandments atop Mt. Sinai. The world would have never been the same, now would it?
Limbs thrash and two girl's unprotected noses bleed with apologetic naiveté. Then, encouraged by natural convection, or perhaps to hastily escape the conflagration below, eerily illuminated stage fog billows towards the ceiling, commingling with purple-hazy clouds of THC tinged smoke, concocting a dense mix. Maybe but a common weather phenomenon in the L.A. Valley, the smoggy atmosphere sends an athsmatic blonde dread coughing out of the pit, holding his chest.
"You know, this ain't about that happy time shit. You'll get killed just because you wear the wrong color, because you hold your hands in the wrong sign. See, people's heads get blown off. Hearts get blown out because they tripped up somehow, or maybe they didn't", calmly relates Sen-Dog, the man either plotting or planning outside in the December air. The stocky Cubano with tired eyes massages his palm with his fist, blowing off tension, quietly challenging cold atmosphere with hot breath. A roadie stumbles off the tour bus, slamming the door, but Sen does not concede to the interruption:
"Cypress Hill is Cypress Hill, period, but I don't separate myself from the gangstas. In fact they're brothers. People like Snoop, Cube, Eric Sermons, they're all originals. They say it like its been. And then, we aren't hippies, neither. We smoke pot, but a hippie'll get his beaded ass shot off on Cypress Avenue. You can't be just about peace n' happiness when you're from there. Maybe that shit works in Maine."
"Livin' like a nigga who done lost his mind, 'cause I ain't goin' out like a spineless jelly fish. Some say life is a bitch; ask that punk who dug his own ditch..."
Underlying the Hill posse's funky mayhem, is an order that is not only at apparent odds with the group's background, but, by necessity, is actually in line with it. Now, while the eventual package is formidable enough to continuously terrorize, there is no arbitrary violence advocated here, no "slapped da bitch" nor reliance on other hackneyed material. Absent is generic macho posturing for it's own effectual worth, the kind of regressive drivel that the record industry seems to be able to market with ease to the impressionable MTV crowd.
Yes, B-Real's haunting rants and Sen's gruff affectations bespeak experiences well-seasoned in police hatred and hollow point bullets. But, no, Cypress ain't goin out like that. Rather, in stark contrast, these master storytellers almost revel, never wallow, in that inhumane quagmire called inner-city existence. Despite their self-alignment with the rest of the gangsta lot, and, though, sharing similar ethos, the name of the game here is self-preservation, rather than just an "eye for a vindictive eye". So, Tipper? -yeah, deal with it, babe...
