Cypress Hill wants to get high on 4/20; concert canceled

Cypress Hill performing on 4/20 at the Spokane Arena couldn’t be more appropriate.

The number 420 – which in cannabis culture is slang for marijuana consumption – and Cypress Hill are akin to peanut butter and jelly and rhythm and blues. They go together.

“I guess we have to play somewhere on 4/20,” MC Sen Dog, aka Senen Reyes, said while calling from his Los Angeles home. “But that’s a good thing. That’s going to be a fun show since you know how we feel a bout marijuana.”

That’s evident in song. “Something for the Blunted” and “Stoned is the Way of the Walk” and “Roll It Up, Light It Up, Smoke It Up” are examples of Cypress Hill’s odes to weed. And if that’s not enough, there’s the anthemic “I Wanna Get High.” “Beats from the Bong” is the title of Cypress Hill’s 2018 album.

Much of Cypress Hill’s content is pro-marijuana. Cypress Hill, along with such diverse recording artists as country legend Willie Nelson, hip-hip icon Snoop Dogg and the venerable rockers The Black Crowes, has always been one of the most vocal recording artists who pushed to legalize cannabis.

“You can see it’s not just guys from hip-hop who want change,” Reyes said. “Marijuana should be legalized.”

Washington and a number of states have done just that and those born well after the year that punk broke in 1991 may not understand how much of a limb Cypress Hill went out on during its salad days.

“It was a big deal,” Reyes said. “Nobody rapped about what we were rapping about. I remember when (former Cypress Hill member DJ) Muggs told me that he wanted B-Real and me to be the Cheech and Chong of hip-hop. I was concerned because I thought we would get blackballed or banned.”

Instead Cypress Hill was embraced by music fans. “I was so glad about their acceptance since what we did was so outlaw,” Reyes said. “But we stuck to our guns throughout the whole journey. We came up with something as rebellious as NWA and Public Enemy but we were on our own tip. But it wasn’t to get attention. We had an important message. Back in the day we would read High Times magazine and we were down with their take on cannabis and hemp and the environment and pollution. We wanted to change the world.”

Much is different today and Reyes is surprised how many states have legalized cannabis.

“It’s what we fought for our whole lives but I’ll be honest,” Reyes said. “I never thought you could walk into a dispensary and order some joints just like you could go to a convenience store and buy beer. It was such an uphill battle but it has finally happened in some places but there are still places that it’s not legal and that’s terrible. There is so much good that comes from cannabis. We’re not done fighting for legalization. I’m hoping that someday soon that cannabis is legal in all 50 states.”

However, Cypress Hill isn’t a marijuana novelty act. The Los Angeles based band deserves credit for being original and innovative. Cypress Hill’s slow, trippy beats, quirky samples and weird noises and MC B-Real’s nasal delivery set the Los Angeles group apart from such peers as the Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest.

“We were just being ourselves and that’s not an easy thing to do,” Reyes said. “Everything we did and do in terms of writing and recording is organic. We never looked at trends. I think that’s apparent.”

Cypress Hill harks back to its early glory days with its latest album, “Back in Black,” which was released in 2022. Producer Black Milk amps up the percussion and the raps by Reyes and B-Real are remarkably clear. Weed remains a hot topic as “Open Ya Mind” is about how federal law enforcement is looking to make high-profile drug busts.

“Some things change but some things remain the same,” Reyes said. “But overall we’re making some progress … If you told us in 1991 that we would still be together and that marijuana would be legal in some states, that would have made us very happy. We didn’t see that coming. We just need to take some more steps when it comes to marijuana.”

Cypress Hill recently returned from its first trip to Australia in more than five years. “We’re trying to get to places that have been good to us and one of those places was Australia,” Reyes said. “That was a great experience. It’s so good to get back to some relative normalcy.”

It’s been 35 years since the pioneering West Coast hip-hop group formed. “It’s hard to believe it’s been that long,” Reyes said. And then there is the success, over 20 million albums sold and the group is the first hip-hop act to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“We never would have dreamed of this back in the day no matter how high we were,” Reyes said.