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October 2nd 2018
Cypress Hill
"Elephants On Acid"
Who hasn't heard of Cypress Hill, really? Even if you haven't heard of the group name or know what they look like, I'm pretty sure you've heard of their hit songs from the 90's such as 'Insane in the Brain' and 'I Wanna Get High'. For those of you who are familiar with them, I'm sure you know of their affection to write songs about marijuana and the culture. Now, since marijuana has been legalized, if not decriminalized or medicated in almost all fifty U.S. states, Cypress Hill had been and continue to be an advocate in the reformation of marijuana laws for recreational or medical use for this change to happen.
The members of Cypress Hill have begun to profit from the new industry, most particularly the face of group, rapper B-Real who has been making products such as glass tips for joints, rolling paper, and having his own strain of weed. The other face of Cypress Hill, Producer DJ Muggs who recently released an album as Soul Assassins a couple months ago has also been busy making his own solo or side projects on top of the countless other people he's been making beats for. So it's no surprise with their busy schedules being entrepreneurs and expanding in the music industry.
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I've already given a brief introduction as to how Cypress Hill in the Soul Assassins album review I mentioned above, so I shall continue where I left off, after they formed in 1988 with Sen Dog, they recorded a demo the following year and was signed to Ruffhouse Records. Their self-titled album was released shortly after in 1991 with the debut single being 'How I Could Just Kill a Man' which got heavy airplay on college radios nation-wide. The following two singles, 'Hand on the Pump' and 'Latin Lingo' put them on the map and they managed to sell two-million copies of the album in the U.S. alone.
They released their second album, 'Black Sunday' in 1993 and they got the number 1 position on the Billboard 200 charts thanks to the hit single 'Insane in the Brain'. The album went triple platinum, selling 3.25 million copies in the U.S. Cypress Hill performed for Woodstock 94 while introducing a fourth member, Eric Bobo, who was a former percussionist for the Beastie Boys. The group was at the peak of their career at that point and they have proven themselves to being the best Rap group at the time.
Their latest album, 'Elephants on Acid' was released on September 28, 2018 and it was my most-anticipated album yet to write a review for! I had been waiting over two months since hearing (seeing?) about it from DJ Muggs' instagram page. The album has twenty-one tracks and a run-time of fifty-one minutes. Feature artists include Sick Jacken, Sadat, Alaa Fifty, Gonjasufi and Brevi. So, not a whole lot, and they don't really need that many, being at their status, they rather focus on more unknown musicians from around the world who deserve the recognition. They have since released four singles: 'Band of Gypsies' (August 3, 2018), 'Muggs is Dead' (August 23, 2018), 'Crazy' (September 14, 2018), and 'Locos' (September 23, 2018).
The album has kind of a weird vibe to it, hence the 'Elephants on Acid' title, I suppose, with middle eastern-sounding intro and samples for the first song, 'Band of Gypsies' to interludes with the sound of elephants trumpeting, and one of their singles, 'Muggs is Dead' is just a trippy atmospheric beat with someone saying "Muggs is dead" over and over in a voice which reminds me of 1930's cartoons. The most Cypress Hill-sounding track would be 'Oh Na Na' for me, but aside from it being a slightly strange album, they have proven themselves enough to give them room to expand their library of music. Muggs has been known for dabbling and experimenting with different sounds over the past decade, so it was kind of expected for me. Give this album a listen, but don't expect too much! One Love!
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Steemed from our Blawg with SteemPress : https://blog.theblockchain.hiphop/2018/10/02/have-you-seen-elephants-on-acid-new-cypress-hill-on-otr-this-week/