The idea of L.A. rap group Cypress Hill teaming up with the London Symphony Orchestra was first floated as a throwaway gag in a 1996 episode of The Simpsons. It turns out the OG hip-hop unit mistakenly hired the fabled outfit while blissfully high, as witnessed backstage at the Springfield Fairgrounds by Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie.
Now, what started out as a stoned-out joke has become reality as Cypress Hill – now composed of B-Real, Sen Dog, Eric Bobo and ex-Public Enemy turntablist DJ Lord, who’s toured with the band since 2019 – traveled across the pond to join with the 70-piece orchestra and its talented conductor/arranger Troy Miller at historic Royal Albert Hall last summer on July 10 to recreate their 1993 masterpiece, Black Sunday. The group’s publishing company Primary Wave has teamed up with Universal Music Group’s Mercury Studios and distributor Iconic Events to premiere the film Cypress Hill & LSO: Black Sunday Live at the Royal Albert Hall at theaters in the U.S. and Canada on March 30, 31 and April 2, to be followed by the album release on June 6.
The entire band, along with luminaries such as the Beastie Boys’ Money Mark, and Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav and Chuck D – who moderated the post-screening Q&A – were on-hand for the premiere of the 90-minute feature at the Culver Theater in Culver City, CA, on the big screen with a booming sound system. B-Real, dressed in a tuxedo for the performance, admitted in an on-camera interview that he followed the rules and didn’t light up inside the hallowed venue, where John Lennon once asked people not to applaud but to “rattle their jewelry” instead.
Hip-hop and classical music are odd but effective bedfellows, not unlike the orchestral rock-fusion of the Moody Blues.
“It just felt unnatural not smoking,” the frontman noted during the subsequent Q&A.
Rather than taking the easy way out and playing to tracks, the band crackles live, thanks to Miller’s boisterous, meticulous and percussion-heavy arrangements as the suit-clad orchestra delights in pounding the tympani or slashing violins to classic joints like “I Ain’t Going Out Like That,” “Insane in the Brain,” “When the Shit Goes Down” and “Hits from the Bong.” Hip-hop and classical music are odd but effective bedfellows, not unlike the orchestral rock-fusion by the likes of the Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Deep Purple and Procol Harum some five decades ago.
“I’ve always been excited by the idea of merging genres,” says Miller in the press notes. “The band gave me free rein on the arrangements, and we made something truly unique and mesmerizing.”
Cypress Hill charges through the 14 songs from Black Sunday in order as the film cuts between their performance and the earnest orchestra, its members unable to keep a straight face as they play along to X-rated raps like “A to the motherfucking K.”
In addition to the Black Sunday tracks, the set includes “Dr. Greenthumb” from Cypress Hill IV; “Illusions" from III: Temples of Doom (which B-Real hints would be the next album to receive the LSO treatment); “Money” from 2004'a Till Death Do Us Part; “How I Could Just Kill a Man” from their 1991 self-titled debut; and “Cuban Necktie” and the finale, “(Rap) Superstar,” from 2000’s Skull & Bones. B-Real compared the closer, with its sprawling orchestral accompaniment, to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”
While co-founder and producer DJ Muggs is no longer part of the touring band, his original arrangements are credited by B-Real with forming the template for what Miller created for the unique performance.
Finally, imagine an entire Cypress Hill film showing only one fan furtively puffing, due to the venue’s official no-smoking policy. Still, Cypress Hill & LSO: Black Sunday Live at the Royal Albert Hall offers enough consciousness-raising moments so that, like B-Real, you don’t even need to puff to feel the contact high from this truly groundbreaking collaboration.
Check for theaters and screening times here.
MORE CYPRESS HILL LINKS
• B-Real's Dr. Greenthumb's Stores
• Cypress Hill's First Album - Extended Edition
