00:00:00
Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Quest Love Show. I can't wait. I kind of want to even skip the long accolades just so I can get started with the questions. But this interview has been a long time coming. Many of you asked about getting him on the show. It's only right that I check in with him for starters. You know, one of the founding members of Cypercial, not to mention for Cypercal seven A three, so many other associations. We can go to Soul Sat, we can. We'll be here all day if we're just doing the accolades. I was about to say, you pioneered hip hop at Geffen. Yeah, I have so many questions about that. Of course, he's keeping the Soul Assassin's brand alive right now with the new sci fi film and an album alongside the La rapper TF called them called me Lucky. It's out now, man, I've been waiting for this.

00:01:12
Speaker 2: Thank you, DJ Muggs, thanks for having me. Bro mean it's a lot.

00:01:14
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, welcome, welcome. All right. I will start with you, as I start with most of my guests. What is your first musical memory in life.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: Growing up, My uncle was my mom's little brother, was my roommate. I was about four or five six those ages, and he had velvet posters, black lights, a tract tapes on the wall, right, and beads incense. You know, he was in the rocks. So listening to the Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, you know what I mean? That was like my intro to music right there.

00:01:46
Speaker 1: This explains the first night pressil record. Absolutely. Okay, Now I'll see where this is about to go. First of all, where were you born? I was born in Queen's Okay, yeah, Jamaica hospital. All right, how long were you there before? Because of course now we associate you with you out here, But how long were you in?

00:02:01
Speaker 2: I moved out here when I was thirteen go to high school. Yeah, the summer before high.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: School, so in for the first thirteen years. Like, have you had any hip hop experiences whatsoever? Like growing up in New York or Yeah?

00:02:14
Speaker 2: It was pretty much just the music, you know. I think I fell in love with hip hop or rappers delight, right, I caught the fever. I was just sitting by the radio all day waiting for the song to come on.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Tape it yep, got you, got you well. You mentioned the albums that were like in your household. Do you remember the very first album that you purchased with your own.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: Money, own money? I think it was War. It had Lowrider on it. Why Can't We Be Friends Out? Yeah, And I was when I heard low Writer. I was I would just play Lowriter all the time. My mom had got me into forty five and then you know I wanted that album.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: I wanted it to what else they had? Ah Man, all right, you mentioned that, And I was four when that came out. And if you remember the album covered that smiley face on it, if you're four years old looking at that smiley face, even though like it just looked real evil to me. And I used to hide that record in the basement. My dad cut so one of my first punishments, He's like, where's my War record? And like I buried it, like I couldn't. I couldn't stand that smile man like that and shame on the world by the main ingredient, like those two album covers, I'd always hide in the basement. So, like, my memories of the war were a little different. So what technically brought you to Los Angeles.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: My mother moved here about a couple of years before. I didn't want to leave, so I stayed in New York live with my aunt, and then you know, I started just getting a little trouble. She was like, you got to get out of here and go live with your mother, the fresh Princess. So I went from you know, one of the most culturally diverse places in the world, to move into a neighborhood called Bell Gardens where it was ninety nine point nine percent Mexican. Okay, so it was a culture shock for me.

00:03:54
Speaker 1: What was it like adjusting in this time period? For you?

00:03:57
Speaker 2: It was hard, man, because you know, I'm used to jump on trains and everything was right down the block, and in Bell Gardens there was no trains. There was nothing there. You know, you had to go to a whole nother city to get anything. So, you know, I didn't like it at all. I would go back to New York, jump on a Greyhound, go back every summer, go back for Christmas vacation. Anytime I can get out of here, I'll just try to get out of here.

00:04:20
Speaker 1: Okay. What were your aspirations as a well, I guess we would call them tweens now like twelve thirteen fourth What were your aspirations? What did you want to do?

00:04:31
Speaker 2: I wanted to play sports, football, baseball. I played football and baseball, okay, and I was like, I'm gonna be I'm gonna play sports when I grow up. So I just played summer leagues, you know, anywhere I can get on a team. I just Pop Warner baseball. That's all I did little league.

00:04:47
Speaker 1: So did you start out as a DJ?

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Like?

00:04:49
Speaker 1: How does music enter your life?

00:04:51
Speaker 2: And now it's like I got the fever for breakdancing, So breakdancing came out. We started breakdancing, and then we was in the basement one time and the homie had a little turntable and we was all trying to copy Rockety DST. Everybody was a little turntable with the cassette in it, you know, with the radio in it all I so we didn't know what the scratch pad was. We was in there trying to cut it. The needles was jumping, and that's when I called started catching the fever a little bit. And then when I seen DST. I think it was the American Music Grammy that turned me out right there. Okay, I was like, oh shit, what is this? It was like some futuristic ship.

00:05:26
Speaker 1: So that was your that was your come to GC moment with it. Did you have any experiences with any cruise pre seven A three or like.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: Well, Cypress. I was down with Cypress before. The crew was called DVX Devastating Vocal Excellence and it was about seven eight of us, Melimennace be Real, send T Bone, who actually ended up being in the Funk Dubias.

00:05:50
Speaker 1: So you were all a crew.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: It was before they got to see how I met in Yeah, and then one of my boys was went out the Hollywood. He's like, yo, I just met these two kids from Brooklyn. You got to meet him. Came out to Hollywood, met them, and I was throwing a jam in a park in Bell Gardens and seven eight three had a record out of my Cola Records called seven A three Were Rocky, which was a remake of We Were Rocky, and I was like, Yo, you guys want to come play my party. We didn't know nobody would a record out at that time, so that was big for us. So they came and the DJ didn't show up, so I DJ for him and they said, you want to be on DJ. We're doing three shows with Ice Team next week, and one was at Osco's, you know. A couple of them was there was a club where the Beverly Centers now. We played there and we did the three shows, and then about three months later we was in the studio recording for Colors saw Mad Mad World.

00:06:43
Speaker 1: Okay, And that's how you guys become. So you're saying you were throwing jams, like what as a promoter or just as a DJ or DJ promoter.

00:06:53
Speaker 2: We got together with a couple of little promoters around in the neighborhood, and we knew the guy at the park because we would always go to the park, you know, play carms and basketball and dodgeball and you know, playing Little League at the park and shit. And she gave us the little hall at the park five dollars to get in and through the jam and it was banging, and that was the beginning of it all.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: Okay. So I've always heard of the folklore of early hip hop starting out in the parks and what not, police, athletically whatever, back in New York, but out here like because the only times I've heard of jams are literally like uncle jam stories walk me just through, like what a typical party is that's not in a non club atmosphere. In the eighties of California.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: Most of it was backyard parties. Two dollars to get in a keg, you know what I mean. Everybody come in and all the little local promoters would throw them. It was a lot of freestyle music. Nobody wanted to dance to hip hop. It was too slow, you know what I mean. So it was that and I used to actually go and go to Uncle Jam's. I would go out by the airport that'd have it in a hotel anything I can.

00:07:58
Speaker 1: Please tell me what that was like.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: It was just a lot of gangsters, a lot of gangsters just pop locking, a lot of pop locking, and then you know, and I would just sit in the corner and just watch and listen. And then I started going to World on Wheels, Costant Communi Rial was the other one.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Of them, Wheels, Rodska Stating Ring.

00:08:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, Greg Mac used to do that with Tony G and then.

00:08:18
Speaker 1: Walking Ice Cuban the mix started.

00:08:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was World on Wheels, there was Skateland USA and uh, and then I'll go to the Radio Tron Radio Tron by MacArthur Park downtown and just absorb it because there was nowhere to see it or here you had to go, you know, So any anywhere I can get there, I would just take a bus, and the bus would take me two hours to get there, you know what I mean. So I would just get on the bus and go to the go to the ship.

00:08:43
Speaker 1: Okay. So in developing seventy three for starters, I got familiar with these guys because you know, once Iron Nation to millions, then I needed anything associated with the bomb squad, so they produced it. I brought the entire records and study the ball. What's different about seventy three is that, at least texture wise, it was way ahead of its time. Like there's rock rap hybrid on there, which I'm assuming now that I know Joe Nicholas associated with it. So wherever joke goes, I'm pretty sure Andy Kravitz is behind him, and Andy was there in all the Yeah, the usual suspects in Philly. I'm from Philly, so like drums is steal and all that stuff to me was like shit that the goats wound up doing. And then rage against machine and all that stuff. Were you guys like aware of how radical that record was in terms of a few things on that album will eventually become commonplace, like fifteen years from then or twenty years from then. Like I mean at the time when in doing like live hip hop with First of all, I know that's Andy Drummond because I know his drum texture. He was on base, was it, Mike, Mike No, not Blonde from School Love? Yeah. Yeah, he's on MTV and plug with LL playing. Mama said that was him. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, what is by the way, Mike Tyler? Yes, okay. How receptive were you to those ideas when when it was presented to you?

00:10:17
Speaker 2: Well, it was interesting because I had all these ideas, I had records like and you know, I was eighteen, and they wasn't going to give I didn't produce nothing yet.

00:10:24
Speaker 1: How much agency did you have in suggesting.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: We was in Philly because Jeff Finster signed us a guffin. Then there was big There was big fans of PSK, so got it. They want Joe to Butcher to work And it was the.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: First school shoutout is from school e D School.

00:10:36
Speaker 2: He actually programmed drums on a couple of songs.

00:10:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay. I heard the word schooly cash.

00:10:41
Speaker 2: Wandy jazz, jazz, jazz jazz, and I think it was Robbie Robbie. What was the rappers in Robbie g Robbie b Okay, yeah, they all they all programmed. They all would come in a program and I was I didn't I didn't produce it. I didn't have a drum machine. I just had all these ideas. So I just sat and watched and just absorbed everything and learned. I got a crash course and to make music in a month.

00:11:01
Speaker 1: Back then, what was your weapon of choice? Based on the sonic of it, I'm assuming that's a twelve hundred bad twelve hundred.

00:11:08
Speaker 2: I didn't have a twelve hundred yet though. So the seven eight three album we worked on it. I had these ideas. I got back and I didn't love the record, to tell you the truth, because I wanted it to be darker and harder.

00:11:20
Speaker 1: You know. I was.

00:11:20
Speaker 2: I was in the Yo Bum Rush, the show, I was in the Ultramagnetic, I was Bebop was a big inspiration on me. The Ramloz record, So this is what I wanted. So when I got home, I was like, fuck, man, I wanted the record to sound like this, so I saved up my money, saved up my money and got me an SP twelve hundred, and then I just started kidnamed Blau that was down with Rhym Syndicate. He showed me i'd call him up if I got stuck. And I made wag beats for about a year, you know, and then one day we did Real Estate and it just sounded like it.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: It sounded like a record.

00:11:52
Speaker 2: And our demos we had a big ass boombox with a double cassette, so I'd run the drum machine right into it. We put the mic right into it, pushed record on the cassette, and biro just one take, and that was our demos. And that's how we That's how we started out.

00:12:03
Speaker 1: That's how y'all got a deal.

00:12:05
Speaker 2: Damn okay, Well no, that was how we made That was how we made real Estate. And I would send the demos to Joe and Joe was like, Oh, this shit's hot. And then then we got a publishing deal with BMG and they gave us some money to go in the studio. Then we recorded Funky Feel, One Light Another and Kill a Man and a song called Caliente which was a Spanish song that wasn't on the record, and thought that was our demo. Okay, that got us the deal.

00:12:30
Speaker 1: So you've made all those even before. But once you got the deal, did you remake those records again? Are you just trying to know?

00:12:36
Speaker 2: I think it was like a three year period while we was working until we got the deal. Two years. So if you notice all the breaks and those songs, it was just me getting bored and just revisit them, just keep adding and adding and adding over that period of time.

00:12:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, so, what makes you guys unique? At least in my opinion, was that, you know, ninety one was sort of the cutoff year where a lot of the hip hop establishment was using primarily ultimate beats and brakes.

00:13:03
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I couldn't wait for the next one to come out.

00:13:06
Speaker 1: A different combination. See I discovered an eighty nine when like all twenty were already out. But so you were getting them in real time, and yeah, how long would releases be in between?

00:13:19
Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly, but I go up to forty second Street. There was a spot on forty second Street, and I'd just go up there and you know, just pillage, what's going what's coming out? Next One's the next one coming out, So I would just always look forward to the next one, because, you know, digging it was a little bit different back then. I didn't have the money for the record, so I'd be in the ninety nine cent bend and just pulling out the ninety nine cent ben and using breaks and beats. But you know, also back then, you couldn't use anything. If it was used, you was whack, you know, so if people use the sample before you, it wasn't something you'd want to put out. And I almost didn't put Kill a Man out because we had the demo, and then EPMD came out with Rampage, and I was like, man, we can't put this shit out. I'm glad we did, though, because I remember you remember making that record. All the homies was driving around bumping it every day. You know, we'd give cassettes out in the neighborhood, and I was like, man, I'm glad we put that shit out because it would have been cold if we didn't.

00:14:11
Speaker 1: I think the day that you guys mastered. So I started interning at rough House right when Black Sunday came out or slightly before, but Han Soul had gotten a copy of you Guys's cassette. And this is right when Tarik and I were first just like busking on the streets or whatever, and so you know, we saw Hans Soul and that was like, oh God, Philadelphia celebrities checking us out, and so he gave us a lift in he played that entire record on the way home. We were just like mind blowing, like we just never heard no shit like that in our lives. You know, most people would credit ninety one for being the kind of the hip hop renaissance period. And a lot of your contemporaries went jazz. Pete Rock was going, jazz, Premiere was going jazz, key Tip, you were going aychaedelic rocking psychedelics, so especially blues, and I assume that's because of the influence that you grew up and listening to.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: You've grown up with dad and all the you know, all the Vietnam rock, Concrete its clear water, you know, all that type stuff.

00:15:14
Speaker 1: And also I tend to judge people not on like the hit singles, but the filler. So just all the crazy psychedelic shit you're doing on stone is the way of the walk and especially at the end, like just you talking about the process of putting that record together, because it just sounds like nothing that was ever released in a lot of rule breaking on it, like.

00:15:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, very unorthodoxed, you know what I mean, and just trying to find our own sound, because it was important then to have your own sound, your own look, and have your own slang too, you know what I mean. And it was interesting because you have I was inspired by New York production, so you had a New York production with West Coast slang on it in West Coast MC, so it was a whole new sound and style. And we'd do the demos at the house. By that time, I got a task Camp four track, and if it didn't sound good on the four track, we wouldn't record it in the studio, and you know, just piecing away, piecing away, and we almost didn't put hand on the pump on there. I was actually just going from couch to couch on my Homies and we were staying at the oak Wood with Bread from seven A three and I played that beat and he's like, yo, I like that beat, and I go, I don't like it because let me write to it. I'm like, all right, let me let you write to it. He wrote, hand on the pump, oh word okay. He wrote the first verse the hook, and the second he goes, and he wrote it for be real and it sounded cool. We recorded it, but we went into the studio. It came alive, man, and I was high as hell in the studio, and I didn't have patience to wait for them to hook the media up to the drum machine. So all they ate a weights I played live. They was on, someone were a little in front, some are a little behind, and then going into the hooks boom boom bom boom boom boom, and all the little sounds. I play them all live. So I didn't really care about quantizing. I didn't care about it being a little off. I didn't care about sound quality. It was more about a vibe and what felt right to us.

00:17:02
Speaker 1: You guys came to act to Philadelphia to actually record it. How many weeks or months did it take to record the album?

00:17:08
Speaker 2: Most of it was recorded. I think we was probably in Philly for about a month, staying at the Comfort in Okay, same place we stayed with seven A three Just walk over to four four four fourth Street, go down to the basement, get myself some chicken soup or something like the little stand they head right there. Yeah, go downstairs and just lock in man, And most of the record was done. We recorded I think Latin Lingo in Philly, and then probably the only extra song we recorded in Philly was that one. Then the album was pretty much done. I came back to La and Joe's like, we need two more songs, and then that's when we did Holding the Head and we did Stone Is the Way of the Walk?

00:17:58
Speaker 1: Could you talk about the after effect? Did you expect this album to do what it did in terms of not even the numbers, but just your nariety, your.

00:18:09
Speaker 2: Nah man, I just wanted to make a record where all my peers gave me respect. That was the main thing.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: Make a record.

00:18:14
Speaker 2: I figured we set about a one hundred fifty thousand if we did out. Everybody I loved was selling about that many records, you know what I mean. So I was like, man, if we could do that, we're good. And the record came out. We shipped sixty thousand, sold about two records. We came out the same time as Tim Dog he was signed, So we went on a promo tour with Tim Dog and he was fuck Compton was banging. So you know, we was doing going to one stops, playing in front of twenty people in the morning, eating it while they're eating eggs. We did playing the clubs sixteen people, you know what I mean, doing the morning shows, doing the mix shows, doing the local press, just doing everything, going city to city and it wasn't popping, but everybody loved our record. We was like, what's going on? And then we had two days off on tour. We was on a Naughty by Nature tour or and we was doing b E t in DC. Two days off and we drove up to New York. We shot kill a man and we shot hand on the Pump back to back. That's why they're in New York.

00:19:10
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, why did y'all shoot in New York? And this is another thing I always thought the top of the second verse, I always thought that was send Dog. But I remember watching you. I'm like, wait a minute, I didn't know you rapped, but was that sind Dogs?

00:19:29
Speaker 2: It was sind Dog on the thing, but send Dog had that backup voice. So we was like, let's let's just I'll do the video. He was like, you do the vid? He looked like it threw it off a little bit right, right, you know? So then MTV raps started playing it right, but they started playing it twice a week, and that was like the Bible. You couldn't wait to get home and watch MTV Raps every day because that was the only place you could issue. So the combination of that stretching Barbito playing our record, and then Juice, the Juice soundtrack, and all those things coming together, we just we went all the way to three. We started selling sixty seventy eighty thousand records a week, touring like a punk rock band because we knew we had a tour to get in front of people, because we weren't going to get radio with how I could kill a man, right.

00:20:10
Speaker 1: Just the synergy between the three of you. At what point did you realize that a rapper's voice becomes an instrument? But clearly in this group, I mean especially, I mean be real. Of course he has a natural gift with his voice. But I know Flave has pioneered a second general role as in hype Man or the second guy in the back of the Captain. But in my book, like sin Dog is one of the greatest backing voices of all time hip hop. And you hear his confidence each song, each you know, each step of the way, you hear his confidence get better. Why why would you, guys? And I understand that Juice was a high profile thing, but for me, like shoot him Up deserved to be on an album so that people would know what I mean. Juice was successful, so people knew. But yeah, why I threw that away?

00:21:07
Speaker 2: Well, we made that specifically for the movie God. So you know, we went in and we was in New York. I think I think Chris Shaw from Public Enemy engineer one of theirs, he was in the studio with us, and we had to go make a song for the soundtrack. And then you know, I think Hank did the put all the music together and Hank picked that song for that scene for the actual main scene in the movie kill a Man. Yeah, but shoot him Up. He is just made for the soundtrack.

00:21:31
Speaker 1: I would say, like around the time that Black Sunday's coming out, would you say that there is such a thing as being too successful? Because the thing is I acknowledge you guys more than anything, as far as the groups that we looked to as far as touring kind of outside of the box in terms of like, you guys were the first group that I was like, Oh, I didn't know that hip hop groups could only be locked into doing hip hop shows. Can just talk about the whole experiences in doing like all tours and with Lolla Palus and the whole different audience embracing you gut.

00:22:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was we had we had that rock and roll energy. Our bandit which which you know, Public Enemy had that rock and roll energy, Beastie Boys had it, Run had it, you know what I mean. So we had that energy. So the first thing was they started putting us on these different tours to you know, open up the fan base. And first time we did it was Lo La Palouzsa was the second stage and we killed it. Everybody came killed and killed it, and then you know, just started opening up things and just started putting some with different people. We played with Metallica one night, next show, We're playing with York you know what I mean. So it was like we just our music worked in festivals, which was because it had that energy and it had that rock and roll energy, but it was still hip hop. But like I said, we came from the bands. I just mentioned them. Hip hop bands all had that energy, you know, So that was a big influence for us at that time.

00:22:58
Speaker 1: Speaking of your live show, can you talk about bringing Eric Bobo into the fold and his energy as a percussionist and whatnot, like definitely brought the show up even higher, Like talk about.

00:23:08
Speaker 2: Bobo was with the Beastie Boys and he became our friend on tour. Beastie Boys didn't smoke. They was vegan and everything, so Bobo would come on our bus smoke weed, right, you know. And then we was doing Woodstock and be really invited Bobo to come play Woodstock with us. So that was the first time he was on stage with us like that. So he came and after that show he pretty much told the Beastie Boys, I retire, I'm going to start rolling with Cypress. We invited him in the band at that point. We liked the dynamics would have brought on stage. The percussion was killing. It fit right into what we was doing and shit. So that was big for us to add Bobo.

00:23:45
Speaker 1: Since you know, the days of Fat Fro Freddie trying to bring the punk thing together with the hip hop thing. In the village in downtown New York. There's always been a connection between the two. But I'll say that when we started entering the game and doing the same things for the best Boys and then doing stuff with Beck and certain rock groups raged against the Machine and whatnot, Like, I always felt that you guys made it easier for us to get the lay of the land. But how jarring was it to play these venues that weren't necessarily audiences that were there to see a hip hop show.

00:24:21
Speaker 2: Like, we loved it because they were wild. They start slam dancing, you know, the kids was just losing.

00:24:26
Speaker 1: So they were open to it and wide open to it.

00:24:28
Speaker 2: They loved us. Yeah, they loved it. So we just embraced it. Man. We just rolled with it and like, what's going on next? Let's go, you know.

00:24:36
Speaker 1: So, can you talk about the pressures of the follow up record? Now? I always feel like the sophomore record is the album which a lot all the pressure in the world's on you to.

00:24:46
Speaker 2: We was torn when we toured like seven months that for that record, first album, and the label hit us was like we need this album right now for the fourth quarter. So we was like shit, man, We went in the studio. We worked on it for a month. If you notice, like three songs already came out, you know, A to the motherfucking K. To the K was out hand on the glock was a remix on the back, you know what I mean. And then we went in. I think we recorded ten new songs and quick. It was a little crazy touring that much because I was used to taking my time on beats and just you know.

00:25:20
Speaker 1: Where did you record the second album? New York? Okay?

00:25:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, the second album was in New York and then uh, you know, went down to Philly and mixed it and recorded it. And I'd said I would never rush a record again and the rest of my life like I'm taking my time moving forward. But at that time, you know, it was a new thing for us to hurry up and make a record. We was used to take the first albums three years. First album is pretty much our whole lives right right, every idea we've ever had, right, So you know, the second one was rushed, and.

00:25:48
Speaker 1: History shows that rush jobs yield also the most successful. Yeah, I can name you twenty songs that were literally made like on the like Aisley Brothers have this story, can shout literally in seven minutes, they had seven minutes left, like, let's do that church on real quick, mma, freestylet it.

00:26:07
Speaker 2: And I was listening to Black Sabbath a lot and a group called Ministry, you know, listen in the Ministry. And so that's probably a reason the record got real dark on that second one, you know what I mean. There wasn't a lot of experiment and trying different things. It was pretty much I made this beatless rap on this beat. I made this beatless rap on this beat.

00:26:22
Speaker 1: What is your creative process in terms of putting things together? Because I meant, you know, the foundation of your work is hip hop, but also your accessory noises, all those things are also just as important to your sonic overlay, like the universes that you paint. Do you just listen to the records completely and then take notes on I'll take that, I'll take that.

00:26:46
Speaker 2: Or I'll always take notes. I'd always go back listen to things, write it down. I'd always like to bring a sound in, like halfway through the verse, like introduce a sound. Always introduce a sound on the chorus that wasn't in the verses. Second verse comes in, either put a break that you haven't heard yet, or introduced a new sound that didn't play yet, you know what I mean. And then just try to keep it moving. And wherever I got bored, that's where you would hear me flip it. And that's just for me hearing the song over and over and over and over. We're okay, I'm bored of this section right here. It needs some life right here, a little flavor. So then I would just start adding things on to it, and the songs would change. They would change and change and change and b rooud. It wouldn't end like it started, you know what I mean. Some songs i'd remix and just I had time, can I make this better? And I just go in and flip it, put a new beat on it.

00:27:32
Speaker 1: I was going to say the break and kill a man, that eight second or eight bar break that you do before the last verse. The way we would just reestyle over that part. It make pause tapes over that, like.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: That was a whole nother beat that that was good, Like for that eight seconds, it's amazing, But when you hear it for two minutes, it was like, this is boring, you know what I mean. So I was like I would just take these other beats that I thought were banging, but they weren't banging for a song, and then I would use those for the breaks. So a lot of those breaks were actually other beats I.

00:28:01
Speaker 1: Made, Like especially with the Cipher's Hill timeline. You hear the metamorphosis of the group, like I hear stuff that you make or in twelve hundred. I guess twelve hundred still your your favorite weapon of choice.

00:28:15
Speaker 2: But I'm in the box now pretty much. I'm all in the box really, yeah, just for time. You know, I got a lot of things to do, so I go in, but I've learned. It took me a minute to just know how to manipulate it, to get my sound, learning to use the right plug in time.

00:28:28
Speaker 1: How hard is it to let go of what you know, like the back of your hand, muscle memories.

00:28:33
Speaker 2: Oh it was hard at the beginning, Like you know, at the beginning, it was hard. But I think on the third album, I started using the ASR ten and I started using more live instruments as well a lot of live fretless basses.

00:28:44
Speaker 1: What prompted you to make that change?

00:28:48
Speaker 2: I needed more sample and time because at one point I was having three or four s P twelves lined up are using bomb squads. I only had, you know, ten seconds of sample in time, and I wanted like an eight second sample, like for illusions. It's a long sample. And I was like, how do I do this? You know what I mean? So Alchemist is the one who had ASR ten, and he was like, yo, you could loop it in here, so you put it in there. And I was like, oh shit, I could do that with this machine. So then I got that machine, set it right by the SP twelve hundred. But all the drums would happen in the SP twelve hundred. I don't like how the ASR sounded for the drums, but I'd put samples in the ASR ten, the long samples.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: Okay, so your musical stuff would go into ASR two. Yeah, you still kept your all the drums and drums all right? So for you, what's your best kick? Your best there? I know it's super nerdy, but trust me, we want to know these things, like what is your go to as far as like your best texture. I had.

00:29:45
Speaker 2: I had a couple of kicks I would use on a lot of songs. I would use tramp a lot. That kick from Tramp, and I'd put it underneath a lot of those first couple of records.

00:29:53
Speaker 1: Is there an isolated kick in tramp that will?

00:29:55
Speaker 2: You know? There's fifteen versions of tramp, right.

00:29:58
Speaker 1: So.

00:30:01
Speaker 2: Noticing, so I grabbed that one and I had one eight awaight I would always use, and then a lot of snares I would get from hip hop instrumentals, you know. I was like, oh, that's a that's a hit song that Snarees banged, so that means it's a hit on that one. It's going to be a hit on this one, you know. So I take your customer snare even for Killer Man. For the drums, I actually took the Day Last Soul had a little break from the Manzel record. I didn't have the original Manzel record, so I got it from the Day Last Soul and it still had the eight awaits in it if you listen to it. Plug tuning was my ship. That blew my mind when I heard that, so Killer Man started off. I wanted to make plug tuning words. So that was me trying to you know, my version of plug tuning.

00:30:44
Speaker 1: Even you hear the bass.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: Doom doom, doom, doom, doom.

00:30:48
Speaker 1: To hear it do do do?

00:30:49
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm saying?

00:30:51
Speaker 1: You got to hear. I don't know if you recently heard it, but you know, because of the anniversaries coming up for like all the day Off stuff, they put the original like Muddy for track demo to man Yeah and Potholes and.

00:31:11
Speaker 2: All those Prince Paul records. Man, like that Daylight Soul changed my life when I heard it. And you knew in the eighties, from eighty seven to like eighty nine, every week the hip hop was reinvented, right, you know, And I was just like.

00:31:23
Speaker 1: Damn, all right, question I've been dying to ask you. And this this is strictly from this. This is a mirror the intern at rough House asking these questions. If you listened to the first Criss Cross record, did anything like sound familiar to you at all as far as all those drums were concerned. Yes, okay, it wasn't just me.

00:31:50
Speaker 2: I even there's even a little squeak in the record. Dog, you know what I'm saying?

00:31:54
Speaker 1: Literally like okay. At one point when we finally got a record deal, I think we made I think we mixed like five songs in Studio four and I went to the back of like Andy's room, which like all where all the tapes are, and literally I saw the first entire Cypress Hill record and then I went and grabbed my keyboard player. I was like, I bet you any amount of money. This is where Jermaine got his drums for it, because literally it was like four songs.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: I was like wow, Like it was like, you know Cypres Hill meets Naughty by Nature. It's like they tell all the Naughty by Nature and it was.

00:32:29
Speaker 3: Like I wanted to know how you felt about that.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I'll tell you an interesting story. Though I sent you the Butcher the Jump Around demo.

00:32:42
Speaker 1: Now I want to get you that part too, And they.

00:32:44
Speaker 2: Wanted to sign it. Before that, I had already heard that I was going to Jack the rapper, and I heard the Cris Cross demos. They played them to me in the car and Jump wasn't on there on the demos. One day they go, oh, we don't want to sign House of Pain. No more cool. Then cut a few months later, then I had to jump demo. That's why you get this is dedicated to.

00:33:07
Speaker 1: You know.

00:33:08
Speaker 2: And it wasn't that I probably wasn't Joe, but somebody heard the record you know.

00:33:11
Speaker 1: And I was going to say, how awkward is that where it's like your label head is kind of your target, but you still have a working relationship with him.

00:33:20
Speaker 2: But well that was everlast. He's like, don't take that off the song. I'm leaving that fund say to you. Joe was like, Muggsy, what's going on. I had nothing to do with it, wasn't. I was like, yeah, but Joe, it's kind of funny.

00:33:30
Speaker 1: We gave me the record.

00:33:31
Speaker 2: It wasn't on their demo. You played me the demo and all of a sudden you don't want to sign us, But now you have a song called Jump.

00:33:36
Speaker 1: Have you seen this the recent commercial where they actually kept that part in which one damn jump around just recently got license for a commercial that I saw during the Super Bowl, all right, for the Volkswagen Yeah, and in the fade out they still kept it dedicated. Just I was like, wait, shit, yeah, well, I mean they cut it off right before they say his name. But I always wanted to know how that went down. I forgot about the whole Jump comparison. I just meant, like, your drums and your text right For the longest I would ask, like, I know the SP twelve hundred pads are here somewhere, like they gotta be here. Let me hear his drums, but not the case. What are the five records that nineties era mugs would save in a fire in terms of just your all time favorites that.

00:34:37
Speaker 2: You would probably Jimmie Hendricks if you hear kill him and I sampled him in the chorus. Of course, you know that that record tramp for sure. At the time it was tramp. It was anything with a jazz stand up base, whatever that might be. At the time, I was all about putting jazz stand up bases in there. And then barkas Barks. I sampled a lot of barks little pieces though, because you know, with the SP twelve you didn't have a lot of sampling time, so it would be a lot of little pieces all mixed up in there.

00:35:08
Speaker 1: And then did you mind the digital distortion of a twelve hundred or did you feel that that added to it, like if you had the machine that sort of made it perfect and sheen, would you have embraced that more or.

00:35:22
Speaker 2: I kind of dug it because you know, we didn't have no sampling time, so I would have the beat on and then I'd match the sample perfect and then I put it on forty five sampling it to the drum machine and had to pull it down. That's how we doubled our sampling time. So that was just part of it. I didn't care because out here we was listening to KD and KD at night. A Spanish station would come on around six o'clock, so you'd hear it's AM radio first of all, right, and then you get the Spanish station, so it's dusty. It sounds like shit, So you were used to it. How did you say that sounds?

00:35:52
Speaker 1: Yeah? Because especially like let me think of a good example, you know, cold feet using all the staff, like all of your the who did cold feet? Albur king? Yeah, like those stabs you know, once processed through the twelve hundred, it's digitally distorted it, which I always wanted to know if people embraced the distortion of it all or if they were longing for a day were now you know, yeah, sonic perfection I was.

00:36:25
Speaker 2: I didn't care about being sonic perfectionist at all. I was about vibe, just straight vibe, one hundred percent. Joe cleaned it up a little later, you know what I mean, he cleaned it up a little bit, but I was like, don't clean it up too much, Like I want my shit dirty.

00:36:39
Speaker 1: All right, So you're a house opinion production. Did you do the entire first? No?

00:36:44
Speaker 2: I did about eight because we was on the road so much. Then their DJ didn't make beat yet, but he came. He came over my house when I was doing the demos and he just watched and he went home and started making beats. If you notice a lot of that shit sounds like I did it.

00:36:58
Speaker 1: So did you do come get some of this? Yeah? Shake kickers? Yes, all right? What I care about Danny Boy? No, I knew it. I was like, Danny Boys is a little too clean for it. I was trying to differentiate between the two for jump Around at least, did you expected all that that was going to take off as much as it did? At all?

00:37:23
Speaker 2: Bro, Like it's forever I had that beat, and like I would demo beats with different rappers and to come through. But if you didn't kill it, you couldn't have the beat. His son Dooby rapped on it. He used to rap on a lot of beats because he was just he was sixteen years old. He was the homie. He was Shawn's homie from seven eight three, okay, so he lived down the Blox. He'd come over and just rap on shit. So he rapped on it. I demoed it with Daddy Freddy okay because I did like four joints with him because I was a big rag muffin hip hop fan.

00:37:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then.

00:37:48
Speaker 2: I actually played it for Cube, passed on it, and then you know, recorded House of Pain and it was cool. I liked it, you know, we shopped it around, nobody was biting on it, and then hit me he was working at Priority Flexing and wanted to sign it. Offered a sixty five thousand, and then one day I got a call from Tommy Boy, which was Monica Lynch and she's like, mugs, this reminds me of she She's irish. She goes this reminds me of my brothers. They go to church, then they go to the bars and get drunk in their fights, right, and it was the perfect place. So I told House of Pain, you know, let's roll with her. And then we got the same guy to do their video, Shady Perez, the same Mike Miller to shoot their album covered, the same guy that did us. We got the same management, and you know she knew what to do with the whole Irish vibe. And you know they went to the Irish Date Parade and that song took off and you never expect nothing like that to happen.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: You know. I liked the record.

00:38:44
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was a great record, but I liked the record.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: I feel like that song is the September of hip hop. Yeah, like earth Wind and Fire had, you know, all these songs that identify them, but the end of the day, it's like a filler song from the Greatest Hits album that winds up. Same with Ronde. It's tricky like that might wind up being their signature song once the smoke clears, even though you know it's Peter Piper and all that shit, and like like when the smoke is clear, like jump around will never not be played at sports, anthems never not be played at celebrations, Like to this.

00:39:19
Speaker 2: Day, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

00:39:21
Speaker 1: It's crazy, all right. Question I've been dying to ask you. Did you produce sometimes the Neighborhood for Call the Wild?

00:39:30
Speaker 2: No, I didn't, And I remember you asked me one time a fight. You know, I need that single and I didn't have any and you was like, yeah, right, you don't got any. I think we was on the Smoking Grooves. Yes, I think Shawn C produced that record. What I think Shawn C might have produced it? That and Clouds of Smoke.

00:39:47
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I want to ask about Daddy Freddy and Funk Dubis also, But where did they come from?

00:39:52
Speaker 2: The call the Wilds from the polo grounds, you know, one hundred fifty fifth and Saint Nick and I met them and then I just started working with him, and uh, you know, I was busy and stuff. We was doing demos and then they was doing records with with Shawn C. Was up in their neighborhood. So they came with that one day and I was like, Yo, that beat is crazzy.

00:40:12
Speaker 1: To this day, that beat rules my life. Shout out to Cosmic Kevin Philadelphia for put me onto that. He just spun the Jesus out of it on radio one day, and I to this day that that rolling pianos down.

00:40:25
Speaker 2: Oh man, and it flips the pitch change and comes back has ruled, yes, umps and everything. I actually got to call the Wild album. We never put it out. I got a whole album. It's banging too wait web it we signed, uh, we signed to Chris. Chris Schwartz signed us. They were going to be on rough House, Yeah, and then they wanted a commercial record. We tried a couple, We tried a couple, sampled some you know, uh, I don't know, fucking some Marvin Gaye or some shit. We try to do some of those those soul records. I was out at the time and it wasn't working. And then they was like, we don't want to do this. I go, hey, man, this is the record. We don't want to do a commercial record. And then we just asked them if we can get dropped, and so they let us go. Chris was cool as l let us go.

00:41:07
Speaker 1: Do you still have that record? Yeah? I got to hear that record, man, I'll shoot it over to please absolutely God damn.

00:41:14
Speaker 2: And the group broke up in the middle of all that and everything, and Smooth actually stayed with me for a while. He's out on the fourth Cypress album on like about four songs.

00:41:21
Speaker 1: Okay. That's a shame, man, because every day I was going to like records, anything new, anything new, and it never came out. What did that twelve innuch come out on?

00:41:30
Speaker 2: Then I started the label's a east Side Records just printed up ourselves, make like a few hundred copies and.

00:41:38
Speaker 1: Damn all right, So I got lucky cool. I'm down. Yeah. Talk about like as far as building the arsenal of your sonic family, like, how did funk Dubious come into to play? That was?

00:41:54
Speaker 2: So we had Son who was trying to be big Daddy Kane dressed like kinge rap like came you know, he was Sean's little homie. And then we had t Bone who was down with Cypress from the DVX crew, and then Ralph em was Kid Frost DJ and so we was like, let's put these guys together and make a group. Bireu had a song called the Funk Dubius that was actually on the A to the K beat before we did at the k Okay, and we was like, let's call them the funk Dubius from your song. So we gave them the name, put them together and got them their deal. There wasn't a lot of rappers around us. Most of our homies didn't rap, so we was like, they rapped, let's make a group of them.

00:42:34
Speaker 1: I got the unveiling or the unleashing of the mug sound in hip hop? Was your collaborative work with ice Cube, right, which you know, I'm dying for the day for someone to start playing Tear this motherfucker up, which is definitely made for where we are now and these times. But I always wanted to know, And I don't know if they were added as an afterthought or whatnot. But do you know why dos never actually dropped a verse on check yourself? Like you just had them for the course or that.

00:43:08
Speaker 2: Was all Cube is? Yeah, Cube was after he had sent him to be He's like, I'm gonna get dis effects on this.

00:43:14
Speaker 1: Okay, So you would just send the beat, send the tapes out, and then let them do it.

00:43:18
Speaker 2: They had none to do it. I mixed it, but that was.

00:43:20
Speaker 1: It, okay, Okay. Normally, when a DJ from a crew gets prominent as a producer, nine times out of ten, like I'll see a situation in which they'll get a replacement touring DJ the tour of the group, especially a group like Cypress Hill, which is always touring, so that said DJ producer can go home and make stuff Like at any point did you consider just permanently leaving the group and just being.

00:43:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have about probably about the last twelve years I stopped torn. So you're not I don't tour on function, okay, Na. I just wanted to make sure. You know, I used to watch behind the music and everything, and I've seen every rock star's biggest regret was not being able to raise their children, you know what I mean. So I was like, now I'm going to make sure I raise my kids. And I just like being in the studio and being creative, you know, because sometimes doing the same set list night after night and being on the road, it just felt like a robot. I want to switch the set list up and you know, do crazy things on tour. But I was just like, man, getting boring and it was hard.

00:44:19
Speaker 1: It was hard.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: Was that it's hard to make beats back then. Now it's easy with the computers, but trying to compete with, you know, the biggest producers and be on tour for seven months a year was hard. And you know, I wasn't making beats fast. I make beats.

00:44:31
Speaker 1: Did you feel competitive, especially in that era of like who's going to get this break first?

00:44:35
Speaker 2: And yo, I'd be on tour and come home and be writing the studio, go back on tour, come home and be writing a studio. Doing that, there was never a break, so you know, I wasn't used to moving like that. So six years of that shit, it's driving you crazy. I didn't know it was driving me crazy until I look back at the time. There was no breaks, and it was hard. It was hard to like make beats. You know, probably when.

00:44:56
Speaker 1: Do you have a little operation on your tour bus.

00:44:59
Speaker 2: I tried, but you're trying to play a record in the bus is bounce and you're trying to record everybody's on the bus. We had twelve people on the bus, so it wasn't and you're tired on tour and shit. So it was hard. And you know, I was making about a beat a week back then, so I'd have to come home and I got to turn this album and you know, a month, so I just have to make trying to make I learned to make beats faster, but at that time it was a little bit difficult.

00:45:23
Speaker 1: Man, every producer I know has a one that got away in terms of like, well, you mentioned that you were almost not going to release kill Man Been Criminal, But has there ever been like a particularly sample that you had something for that you held back of the last minute because it's already out there.

00:45:43
Speaker 2: And so after Black Sunday, after the record got so big and you know, and saying it to bring Blue the fuck up, then we started getting the backlash. Oh, they sold out, they did this, they went rock. So I was like, you was doing what you were doing exactly.

00:46:00
Speaker 1: The brain could have been on the first record.

00:46:02
Speaker 2: We never went out of our way to make it hit. It's the same records we made. And what I knew was insane in the brain. I was like, they didn't get enough for that sound yet, so let me make another version. To kill a Man is what insane in the brain was. Let me make let me if you listen to the bassline, Okay, so they put the brakes in it and shit. So I was like, they didn't get enough of this sound, so let me feed them a little bit more of this sounds, you know what I mean. So when it was time for the third album, I was like, I'm gonna make the darkest record I can make, you know, And so I just sat. But we did a song that's a banger, and I hear it now and I was like that was a hit single that should have been the first single on Temple of Boom, which one us to go with. And it's called in the City of Angels. Okay, in the City of Angels, where the hustlers play and the ballers be dropping a vapid all day. It's a banger.

00:46:50
Speaker 1: You mentioned something about texture. You gotta you gotta sell this once and for all. Jump around, h what is the shrill noise for? There's there's there's this battle.

00:47:03
Speaker 2: I never cleared the sample though, so you want to beep it out.

00:47:09
Speaker 1: Look, if it's who I think it is, that person's has been long gone for ten years.

00:47:15
Speaker 2: It's not Prince Dog.

00:47:18
Speaker 1: Okay, so it is indeed, but you hear what we hear.

00:47:24
Speaker 2: Prince thought it was Prince too.

00:47:26
Speaker 1: He came to you.

00:47:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, when we was in Minnesota one time they go. We was playing in the club. He was upstairs. We talked, We had a little conversation for a minute, but it wasn't Prince and I told him who it was and he got it.

00:47:39
Speaker 1: Wait, what so how did he approach you about it?

00:47:41
Speaker 2: But he was downstairs, and I guess he was upstairs and somebody had you know, Boom and I went upstairs and just talked to him for a second and let him know, and he just looked at me, like, Okay, I think once he heard. I think once he heard what it was, it made say.

00:47:57
Speaker 1: You know what. Okay, So I went back and heard it.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: But I couldn't mistake it. I couldn't mistake it for that.

00:48:02
Speaker 1: I still love the lure of we We all thought that the get off yell was a distorted whatever the distorted shrill is in jump Around, when, of course it was just and.

00:48:17
Speaker 2: We just got popped for that sample I think about five years ago. Wait, so it's still just We just had to pay for it obviously. But you know, thank god the laws got changed. They only was able to go back three years and get royalties. If they was able to go back twenty years, it would have been cold as cold as ice for us. But yeah, it was Chubby Checker for what song. I can't remember this, that's Chubby Checker. Yeah, it's that. And then it just goes into a hole. It goes into some hole of the ship.

00:48:45
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, I didn't know that.

00:48:49
Speaker 2: And it's the same drums from hand on the pump, same tramp. It is tramp drums and the same the same high hats at the whole the same kit.

00:48:57
Speaker 1: Like how exhausting was that period of hip hop? I mean, that's the period I missed the most where it was just the goal rush wild West of sample clearing and not sample clearing.

00:49:10
Speaker 2: Just putting records out, this barrage.

00:49:12
Speaker 1: Of samples on top of each other, which I miss it so money too, But how Nightmaries was it just to make a record and say nineteen ninety five or ninety six, where your hands are sort of tied behind your back because what you're known for sonically you can't.

00:49:31
Speaker 2: Well the first album when it was done, Chris Schwartz told me like this, he is, we ain't going to clear these samples. This record will never come out. We're just gonna put this record out and deal with it later. And we got hit for samples for the next fifteen years, you know what I mean.

00:49:45
Speaker 1: Oh, so you did have to pay a proble.

00:49:46
Speaker 2: We played fifty grand for Duke of earl Ah. You know, we paid, We paid, We paid for everything. And I told ice Cube that one day he goes fifty grand for a hit, I'll do that any day. And then it made me go, oh, that should make sense to me. I never thought about it like that. But by the time I got the Temple of Boom, I started implementing a lot of more live instruments. So there's a lot of live baselines on there with just you know, live organ sounds and stuff. All ran through the SP twelve hundred to give them that dust. But at that time I just was like, then I had to start turning samples in the be and Sam was looking at me like, better clear these fucking samples. Man, this is costing us a lot of money. When we get another you know, fifty hundred thousand dollars lawsuit, then we got hit forum sil Johnson in Alude on Black Sunday because I'm Black. Yeah, twenty million dollar lawsuit. Wait what twenty million dollars froze everybody's publishing, froze everybody's royalties for a couple of years.

00:50:41
Speaker 1: Where'd they get twenty million from.

00:50:43
Speaker 2: Some ambulance chasing lawyer from Chicago and trying to say that the reason this album's a hit is because of that interlude. And I was like, no, it don't work like that. The hit songs, the single and drove it. I go, that's a thirty one second record.

00:51:00
Speaker 1: For a fact that I first heard is it becomes I'm black on that record, right, and I'm one of the dueves and nerds that will read the sample credit or whatever or no, and then by Cel Johnson and then by more Cel Johnson, me too, and absolutely they logically can't see that that's benefiting them.

00:51:20
Speaker 2: I don't think he's seen it like that. I think he was just trying to get as much as he can. So thank god I've recorded. I got it from the forty five, which I think the laws changed by the time they started, by the time it was on the album for the songwriters, right, they ended up getting three hundred thousand, and then they appealed it and then the judge got mad. He goes, you know what, now you don't get ship. Now you got to pay their law fees. So it ended up working out. It ended up working out good for us man the guy that he got real greedy and they was aggressive in the in the I had to sit down and get testimonies and all this shit. Lawyers were yelling at us. It was like three days of sitting down, depositions and shit like that. What you had to go through before an interlude. I was like, God, damn, well, this shit I gotta go through. And then, you know, and that's the to answer your question, that's when it's like, I can't sample shit no more. And then they was hitting you hard for samples at that time because they knew what they can get, you know what I mean. So, you know, then we just started having to figure other things out. I think it took away from the vibe, you know, moving forward to like the fourth fifth album, you know, not being able to just be free and sample anything you wanted at any time. You know, you had to be very cautious, especially once you get success. If he was putting underground records out, it's a different thing. But now at that point, as soon as that record comes out, they're playing that they're looking for shit, right, and the label don't want to give up their masters, you know, so the labels extra too, you know, they're writing that ship in the context you are liable for all the samples now.

00:52:56
Speaker 1: In prime cypercial touring. Lord, how hard was it being advocates of cannabis use and we use in kind of an outlaw form like you know, yeah, yeah, where there's some towns in which you guys knew you had to go dry.

00:53:13
Speaker 2: And the cops stay, don't light up, You're going to jail. Cops waiting on the side of the stage, like a lot of that, you know what I mean. That's when it was actually fun. Though when it was the outlaws shit, you know what I mean, That's when I actually dug it. But yeah, there was times, you know, especially Texas, Arizona, Theavid cops waiting for us, waiting for us, don't light up. They were set. They're standing there waiting for you to light up. So we got a lot of that, especially like in the Bible belt and how would you handle it, which wouldn't smoke on stage that night?

00:53:42
Speaker 1: Really? Yeah? Okay, So I directed the Saturday Night Live documentary about music acts on the show, and I had it been a multi series, I would have definitely gotten to you guys, because you guys are part of a very small club of people who got in trouble for certain acts on sn L. Can you talk about the whole sn L incident because you actually came from behind the turntables and set it off and said.

00:54:13
Speaker 2: I said in New York, can I light my joint? You know. So we're in the green room doing rehearsals and I'm just rolling some weed and don't light up on stage, and I'm like, of course, okay, don't light up on stage. Fifteen times I had no problem. Then I was just like, you know what, I was planning on it. But after they was telling me, I started second guestsing myself and I was like, man, fuck damn, I'm gonna light up on stage, but don't do it on the first song because they're not going to let us come back out. So I waited to the second song. That's when I go, Yo, can I light my joint? They told me. The phone line started going crazy, the crowd started looking around. Everybody's calling in what the fuck they're doing? What the fuck they're doing, and you know, start smashing the turntables because we would. We would smash all our turntables like the Who. So you know, on tour, smashing smashing everything like insane in the brain, so you know, doing all that. And after after the show, well they let me have it. The label the executives up there being Sam was mad at me, and I was just like, man, fuck this ship, you know what I mean, that's what it is, so you know, I never knew it would go this far and still be alive like this. You know, it was just something we did.

00:55:27
Speaker 1: It was it's legal, and like.

00:55:32
Speaker 2: Now now it's now. Now it's corny. Everybody's it's boring. Now I'm saying it was good when you was the bad guy and you ain't supposed to do this, you know what I mean. And you know, we we just took the torch from a Bob Marley, from you know, the Rolling Stones, all the rock and roll guys that was smoking. That's what that's what. That's what we came.

00:55:51
Speaker 1: Have you guys over the dispensary at least? Yeah, Bibro has I was about to say, if there's not a cypress really a dispensary, then this is off or not.

00:55:59
Speaker 2: It's called the green thumb, okay, And you know, it's just we just took the torch from Bob Marley, you know what I mean, and all the acts of the sixties, and it was like, let's just bring this this thing and just's try to make this legal. So we was doing fundraisers for Normal, the National Organization for Former Marijuana Laws, doing fundraisers trying to get money so they can go to Congress with their lobbyist groups and you know, get this shit legal, you know what I mean. So for years we did that and we pushed, we pushed for that, and then once it got legal, I was like, I just boring now.

00:56:30
Speaker 1: I figured as much at the height of just the fringy that was Cypersal. I always wanted to know, has Hollywood ever come calling to you guys at all, like especially in terms of like what Cheach and Chong films meant in the seventies or whatever that at any point.

00:56:49
Speaker 2: They haven't. They haven't, really. No. The only thing we did close enough was we did I think we have a scene in how High, Yeah, and just doing the music for Fridays, But we never they never approached us to do a film, which in hindsight, if I would have known what I know now, we would have done a film back then, probably been on volume five by now.

00:57:07
Speaker 1: Were you involved at all with the okay As a long time since Simpsons fan of course Simpson's heads know that there was a Cypress Hill joke, maybe with the London vill Harmonic whatever, And then I think recently or maybe a year ago or two years ago, it finally that joke finally came.

00:57:27
Speaker 2: To life with yeaitis there was I wasn't there. DJ Lord tours with him now from public and okay, okay, yeah he's dope. Okay, damn See you didn't have to deal with that.

00:57:37
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your your collaboration al Preeze that you've done. Soul Assassins was your your very first outing outside of the group as far as.

00:57:46
Speaker 2: Soul Assassins is a crew like, so once we start putting out albums we had I mid the combination. Oh yeah, that was my first thing outside the group. And you know, I was never I went to I didn't like selling beats to people because I went to a couple of little studio sessions and there's ten producers waiting for their turn to go play beat battle call. And I walked into one of those and I looked around and I was like, I'll be right back. I'm gonna go to the store. And I never went back, you know. And I was talking to a famous producer one day. I go, man, I love your shit. He goes, nah, Man, he goes, you're doing it right. He goes, I'm waiting for the next phone call to sell a beat. He goes, you build your own world, and then I was at that point, I was like, you know what, I just want to build my own worlds and be in full control of my worlds. So that's the reason I didn't do a lot of production outside. I've done records, but I just said, you know what, I'm going to build my own worlds for now on and work with artists and produce the whole record and do the Sol Assassin's records now.

00:58:37
Speaker 1: In the cattle called era of you know, make me beat, made me beat? Like who? Well, I know you got someone Goodie Mob?

00:58:44
Speaker 2: Well there was my friends.

00:58:45
Speaker 1: That was what to say.

00:58:46
Speaker 2: That was a very random I used to go to Atlanta and just ran a studio for a week and record, like I was probably got five or six Morecodie Mob songs, you know.

00:58:53
Speaker 1: So what was it about Atlanta that called you there?

00:58:56
Speaker 2: I just connected with them. When I met Goodie Mob, we just became friends. So I would go down there just just to go fuck with them. Okay, I'm right in the studio, y'all in town. Just go down there to make beats and then they pull up when they could pull up and just record. When we ended up doing one record we did was just a song. It was on Still Standing, the second album. No, that was in Shalah, Yes, No, but we did just a song for a Spike Lee movie Bamboozled.

00:59:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:59:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh shit, yeah, I gotta I gotta play the original It's fucking fire, Okay.

00:59:26
Speaker 1: If anything, I always felt that you were the next logical step. Your your sound is like between especially between ninety one and ninety four, your sonic texture would have been the actual place where Pe should have landed in terms of what to do next after Apocalypse ninety one? Like what are some of the news that you didn't do? As far as like collaborations.

00:59:57
Speaker 2: Wasn't a lot? Like what wasn't a lot? Because I just wouldn't even put myself out there like that.

01:00:02
Speaker 1: Oh you know what I mean?

01:00:03
Speaker 2: I just made sure I stayed in. I did what krs wan.

01:00:07
Speaker 1: You know what, while we're talking about this, you did a remix for you two once and Numb.

01:00:13
Speaker 2: It was numb first song Edge ever Edge rapped on it.

01:00:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, I was going to say that I always knew the album version chat on Yeah. Fact, I was going to say that when I got that twelve inch I was like, yo, like now this sounds this sounds official.

01:00:32
Speaker 1: Like their version was more like at Rock or whatever. They were like switching their style up for that particular album. But uh yeah, I was going to say that that was an incredible remix that I felt that should have gotten.

01:00:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was banging. I was a banger. I like that one got further into it and he kind of rapped on it.

01:00:50
Speaker 1: You know.

01:00:50
Speaker 2: So I made that, man, you definitely made it.

01:00:53
Speaker 1: You brought out more, at least as far as your collaborative projects that you've done. I mean, You've done stuff with the Jizza dude. The rock Marciano album is like definitely one of my favorites. You work with Old Bill, like all these acts, Planet Asia, six Jacket, all these like of all the collaborative projects you've done, like would have been like your favorites as far as your highlights.

01:01:17
Speaker 2: The rock record, the Makami records, I did, Rome Streets.

01:01:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, for where hip hop is now, like the post rock Marciano Griselda. We could put Action Bronson's last three or four records into there. I love where it's going, which is weird because I'm a drummer and kind of the one thing, thanks Alchemist, the one the one element that's missing is it's drumless. But somehow I feel like it fits into your world perfectly, Like how do you feel now about And I know every.

01:01:54
Speaker 2: You know this sounds morphine And even even with when there are drums, they're mixed lower now and it's funny when you mix them higher, it just sounds like boom back from the nineties, right, But when you bring the drums down a little bit more let the music shine. It's with the sound of Now you know what I mean, I've been drumless. I've done I'm born to get busy. On the first Cypressouth, I didn't have no drums the song with under Soul Assassins will call the Wild Yeah, no drums, you know Scooby Doo with Cypress Hill, no drums. So we tapped into that now. But now it wasn't a thing then, but now it's a thing.

01:02:24
Speaker 1: Is it odd for it not to have that? Because even what I'm trying to make now, I'm like Jesus like the latter, I turn my drums up. I'm like sneaking back to my ninety six ninety seven thing, and I'm trying to figure out like how to recontextualize the music. But for you now that we're in loop based right era hip hop, Like, how do you feel this is right up your alley?

01:02:52
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's right up my alley. Sometimes you got a loop and you try to put drums on them, it just fucks it up. It don't sound good, you know. So a lot of times I would just put drums in there, even with Cyprus, and put the drums low so it doesn't mess up the loop, you know, especially if you're trying to put a snare on the snare and it just takes the vibes. So if it works, it works. And I make sure half the records usually have drums, and then you know, parts of the records don't have drums. And what I'm working on these days, you know what I'm saying. And I don't pick the beats for the rappers. I give them a folder, like here's the thirty beats. I like, you know, pick what you like. Sometimes they was like, man, I didn't like those beats. I didn't pick them.

01:03:32
Speaker 1: Nice Alchemist right now is like killing the game. Can you just talk about like just mentoring him and from the days of the hooligans to where he is now as a producer and developing him. How would you first meet him?

01:03:46
Speaker 2: I met him because actually are for our manager back then called me one day he goes, Mugs, you want to make a lot of money, and I'm like, why not? I got this rap group, two little white kids from Beverly Hills. I said, get the fuck out of here. I don't want to talk show, get out of here with this shit. And so they called be Real next. You know, they want affiliated with Cypress. So b Real ended up working with him and he executive produced the first album and got some producers that were down with the management team to produce their first record. So during that I met Al and then Al realized during that record like, oh, Muggs is the sound beside Cypress Hill. So I seen him he was about fourteen, and I seen in him what I've seen in me at that age, like mans, just his hunger and his dedication. And I was but you know I was. I didn't have nobody to show me like how this shit works. I remember walking in the studio the first time when we was kids. I walked into the studio in Hollywood Boulevard and we want to make a record. I thought the music was already in the studio for you. I don't know how to make the music and bring it there. So I was like, all, this kid needs to be exposed and be around it. So him being him being in the studio, I take him on tour with us every place we can go. He went to Atlanta with me, you know, and I'd just take him around and anything I did, I just brought him with me and just exposed him. And he's a sponge and he's a little genius, you know what I mean. And I just knew he just needed to be around it to soak it up, because that's how I learned with Joe the Butcher, just being in the studio. Oh that's how you do it. That's how this is. And you know, it's just it's just a fucking quantum leap, you know, into into the future. So all these all the shit you might have had to deal with, you can just kind of like just learn from being around the shit.

01:05:34
Speaker 1: Now that you're almost four decades into making music, where does the passion still lie? Like what is your process today like tomorrow? When do you normally make beats? Are you a morning person. Are you a night person?

01:05:52
Speaker 2: I'll flip it up because if sometimes I get up at six and just go to the studio, but then after three or four days, I'm bored of that, you know, so I might do that. Now I'll just try to make I'll go in for six hours and make a beat every half an hour. But I don't finish beats no more, because I remember sitting down and listening to about fifty beats I never used, and I spend fucking days on them, and I go, how much time did I just waste on these beats that never came out? So now I just ideas. I don't finish the beats. I come up with ideas. So I'll go in three days a week, make twelve beats a day, and then when somebody wants to use it, then I finish it, you know. So I just I get to scratch idea.

01:06:27
Speaker 1: Where is the sort of the pile up? How many would you reckon? Are in your cannon right now? As far as like, do you have an entire collection of every beat that you've ever made.

01:06:40
Speaker 2: From the last ten years?

01:06:42
Speaker 1: Yeah?

01:06:42
Speaker 2: I got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of beats.

01:06:45
Speaker 1: Have you kept the original s B twelve hundred discs from the.

01:06:49
Speaker 2: Got all those discs still okay, you know, and they work all right, No, that's important.

01:06:54
Speaker 1: That's important creatively. Now what still, what's still motivates you?

01:07:01
Speaker 2: I think now it's like working with younger artists and being able to just inspire and maybe help, like, you know, oh I like this motherfucker. Oh but if he did this, I could take him to the next level, you know, and then you got to put the work in, obviously, but just just the kind of music we love. I just want to keep inspiring the next generation of kids to keep doing what we love. And I think they got to, you know, go and do this style or I got to do trap records or nothing like this style. Right, here's this shit. So you know, I see me now as just being an inspiration to the next generation.

01:07:35
Speaker 1: Has there ever been a time period where you thought you might have to be a suit an executive? Never working at a I always wandered, all right, So this is the thing. Artists often complain about suits and just the politics of the industry. But I always said that I can't wait for the day in which like music cats actually run the music business. It would be so much different, Like your version of what you think is dope right right, could mean the world of difference for least like five or six quality records to come out, because I know that you least have immersed yourself and dipped the toe inside of actual music, whereas you know your average A and R.

01:08:17
Speaker 2: Well, Andrew Shack a Priority actually brought me in to run the A and R department, but then Priority went out of business like two months later.

01:08:25
Speaker 1: Hey they sold.

01:08:27
Speaker 2: But that's I feel the same way about press and what you guys are doing is great because it's actually musicians. What Nori's doing is great, What Cam is doing great. You know. I'm glad that's happening because there was a lot of people over here judging your music that never went on tour, that didn't know how hard it is to have a relations journalists, Yeah, to go on tour and then be on tour for seven months and then you know, fighting with your wife and then having the pressure to go make a hit song. Like they're just going to sit back and talk about your records, and it's like, you know, so when I did the Bullworth record, methemat and had a line they talk about it while we live it, you know, and it's like to be able to sit down and talk to journalists who actually do this with us, it's like, oh fuck, it's refreshing. Just when even when I watch sports and there's sports guys that are the journalists. Now it's like, oh, this is the shit, you know what I'm saying. But you know, I've been I've been blessed to be able to save my money make a lot of really good investments. So I don't make music for money no more. It's just strictly being creative. And you know, there's a few times a year I go, I never want to do this shit again, you know. But then I just go on vacation. And then as funny, soon as I get out of my comfort zone and I get somewhere, I'm like, oh, the ideas start coming and they just start piling and right, you know what I mean. And I just get home and I got the fire again. But I know myself, well enough I go out here, I'm here again. I need to let me get out of town for me, let me go do something else.

01:09:45
Speaker 1: Do you have a self care routine where people believe in vacations and time out.

01:09:49
Speaker 2: And definitely it's necessary, you know, And I end up making beats in the morning. If I'm in Hawaii, I'll get up for an hour and just bang out a couple of ideas and then just go swim all day, you know what I'm saying. So I'm as myself as a man to understand like my ebbs and flows. But now I'm not a producer, you know. I'm more of an artist where I'm going to sit down and make full projects and try to teach these dudes find out what the best thing is for them. Some people don't want to listen. I'm like, I give them some advice. I don't want to listen. I'm like, cool, all your ideas, all your thinking got to you exactly where you are today. If you want to stay where you are, keep going. But if you want to listen, I could help you get to that next place where you want to get, you know what I mean, and level up a little bit. So the motherfuckers who want to listen. And then after they've done work with me and I actually put the work in, I see the jump and they come. I mean, I appreciated my life changed after I work with you, you know, And other dudes who are just like, Nah, this is how I do my shit, and this is who I am. Oh I cool down, homie. Yeah, there's the record. We're done.

01:10:47
Speaker 1: God bless you anything left on your bucket list as far as things that you want to achieve creatively.

01:10:54
Speaker 2: I'm doing films now. So this is my second short film. Okay, So I think next year I'm going to get into some features. That's the next move. And that actually made the third Soul Assassin album. We made fun because I was like, man, I've done one hundred and fifty music videos. I'm tired of doing videos, you know, I'm tired of this. I was like, what else can I do? Man? And so Death Valley. I got with Jason Goldwatch and did Death Valley, which actually started inspiring a couple of different people to make films.

01:11:19
Speaker 1: You know.

01:11:19
Speaker 2: Al told me he's like, man, you inspired me to make the film he made last year with them, was it, Gibbs. It's just being able to just something that just keeps my brain ticking and stuff, you know. So sometimes I'll go in and bring my musicians in and be like, all right, let's play some shit like this. I'll play records and we'll just flip them in and I'll just He'll play me shit and I'll just flip the samples. And other days I just go in and sample and yeah, man, it's just shit's got to come out. I just enjoy going in the lab and just making music.

01:11:48
Speaker 1: Still, what was the advice that you're glad that you didn't take it?

01:11:52
Speaker 2: Make your shit on the metronome. Your shit's dusty, you need to clean it up.

01:11:55
Speaker 1: You don't quantize sometimes, no Ah, nice, you need.

01:11:59
Speaker 2: Your shit soft beat. It's it's dusty, it's not quantized, and uh, you know, and I was like, fuck it. I like it. I like unorthodox shit that doesn't make sense, you know what I mean? And that's been I live by that and die by that shit.

01:12:15
Speaker 1: Who is your longest friendship in this industry and as far as your journey as DJ months.

01:12:21
Speaker 2: Oh shit, probably my Cypress boys, you know, Me and B still tight, you know what I mean. And just my regular homies, you know what I mean. I met a lot of good people along the journey, you know what I'm saying. But yeah, just the fact we still got a good brotherhood. Anybody's cool.

01:12:37
Speaker 1: Who's the one person in your life that keeps you in check in check. I mean a lot of times I think when you get status, you go into it. Can't tell me nothing.

01:12:46
Speaker 2: It's just my regular friends. Just my regular friends. Work, we clown you know. If I walk in with some funny ass socks on, you know, they let you have it, you know what I mean. So you know, just my homies are just some regular motherfuckers. They don't they don't make me music and nothing. So it's just keeping your core group of homies around all the time.

01:13:04
Speaker 1: All right, I'll close with this, why do you still do it? Why do you still want to make music? What keeps you going? You know?

01:13:15
Speaker 2: I think my biggest fear is waking up one day and just not having an inspiration, like not having that no more, you know what I mean. And so I just appreciate the blessing I was given, you know what I mean. And I will never disrespect this blessing, so I actually enjoy it, you know what I mean. And early in my career is about the ego and about me and being successful, you know what I mean, and getting out there and you know, trying to be one of the best producers and then you know, you achieve that and now It's about finding the next generation and finding little diamonds in the rough and shining them up a little bit and getting in the lab with them, you know. Like like the kittf I'm working with now, I thought he was one of the best dudes that I like in La So I was like, I could take watch when this album's done, You're going to start torn in Europe. You're going to start seeing a lot of doors open for it that didn't open, you know. Hence you know Rome Streets, same situation. Where as Freshco from Canada. You know what I mean, Just working with these kids that are open and they're excited, and they're just they're hungry, and I'm like, oh, that's how I felt in nineteen eighty eight, you know what I mean. And being able to help them achieve their dreams and all their goals and their ambitions, you know, and when you see the light on in them that they really want to work and do this and put the put more energy into the project, then you'll put I'm like, yeah, Okay, that's what I feed off of now.

01:14:35
Speaker 1: I know. You know, people will come up to you say, oh, this is a classic, this is a classic.

01:14:39
Speaker 2: Oh it was the movie with hit Boy Goldfish. Yeah, when I was at the screen and Owl gave me props, he was like, man, we did this because of Mugs. I got inspired by Death Valley.

01:14:50
Speaker 1: Oh okay.

01:14:50
Speaker 2: So you know those are the things, those are the things that keep me doing and I think, you know, I'm still trying to push the limits in the underground music and try to push things. So like I'll get into features and just do different things and hopefully I could inspire, like I said, just keep inspiring motherfuckers to keep doing what we like. Because there was a minute there with this kind of hip hop was kind of it was getting less and less, you know what I mean. It's like it was it was hanging by a string, you know what I mean. But you know, and just you know, seeing ship like Na's coming back and doing his ship and everything he's doing with MASSI appeal like that's inspiring, you know, coming back and bringing all the OG's back and everything. So that's what we got to do. This game gave me a lot, man, you know what I mean, People I met, places, I've been, things I got to do, and so I just want to keep giving back to it.

01:15:32
Speaker 1: And you know, well sir, I thank you for coming on the show.

01:15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bro, thank you. I appreciate your artistreet, thank you very much. Brother everything you shot everything DJ.

01:15:40
Speaker 1: Muggs on the Quest Love Show yep, and we will see y'all on the next go around. See y'all later. The West Love Show is hosted by Me a mirror Quest Love Tom Executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Connelly. iHeart Video support by Mark Kanton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Blowe. Additional support by Lance Colman and special thanks to Kathy Brown. Special thanks to Sundar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, and make sure you follow us on socials That's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including the Quest of Supreme shows and our podcast archives. Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio