DJ Muggs

DJ Muggs and Questlove link up in Hollywood, California for a deep dive into the creative vision that made Cypress Hill one of Hip-Hop's most groundbreaking acts. From SP-1200 grit and Psychedelic textures to Rock-infused boom bap, Muggs traces his journey from Queens to Bell Gardens, revisits the making of classics like "How I Could Just Kill a Man," "Hand On The Pump," and House Of Pain's "Jump Around." Along the way, he discusses his latest collaboration, Don't Call Me Lucky, with Los Angeles lyricist TF, mentoring The Alchemist, and why today's drumless, loop-driven renaissance feels like a continuation of ideas he was exploring decades ago. Still driven by curiosity over convention, Muggs explains why chasing dusty, unconventional sounds remains at the heart of everything he creates. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series, on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  The Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Questlove Show. I can't wait. I kinda wanna 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 Cypress Hill, not to mention for Cypress Hill '783, 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.

• 2:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  I have so many questions about that. Of course, he's keeping the Soul Assassins brand alive right now with a new sci-fi film and an album alongside the L.A. rapper TF called Don't Call Me Lucky. It's out now. Man, I've been waiting for this.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Thank you, brother.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  DJ Mugs.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me, bro. Means a lot.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  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?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Growing up, my uncle was my mom's little brother, was my roommate. I was about four, five, six, those ages, and he had velvet posters, black lights, 8-track tapes on the wall.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  And beads, incense, you know, he was into rock, so listening to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, you know what I mean? That was like my intro to music right there.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  This explains the first Cypress Hill record.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Okay, now I see where this is about to go. First of all, where were you born?

• 2:59Speaker 03

  I was born in Queens.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jamaica Hospital.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  All right. How long were you there before? Because of course now we associate you with California out here, but how long were you in?

• 3:09Speaker 03

  I moved out here when I was 13, to go to high school. Yeah, the summer before high school.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  So in, for the first 13 years, like, have you had any hip-hop experiences whatsoever, like, growing up in New York, or?

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was pretty much just the music, you know? I think I fell in love with hip-hop, with rappers' delight.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  I caught the fever. I was just sit by the radio all day, waiting for the song to come on.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Tape it.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  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 money?

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Own money? I think it was War. It had Low Rider on it.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  The Why Can't We Be Friends album?

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I was, when I heard Low Rider, I was, I would just play Low Rider all the time. My mom had got me the 45, and then, you know, I wanted that album, I wanted to hear what else they had.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Ah, man. All right, you mentioned that, and I was four when that came out, and if you remember the album cover, 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's, 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, ah. Then 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 where we're a little different. So, what technically brought you to Los Angeles?

• 4:38Speaker 03

  My mother moved here about a couple of years before. I didn't wanna leave, so I stayed in New York, live with my aunt.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  And then, you know, I started just getting a little trouble, she was like, you gotta get out of here, go live with your mother.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  The Fresh Prince.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  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 99.9% Mexican.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  It was a culture shock for me.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  What was it like adjusting in this time period for you?

• 5:04Speaker 03

  It was hard, man, because, you know, I'm used to jumping 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, jump on a Greyhound, go back every summer, go back for Christmas vacation, anytime I can get out of here, I would just try to get out of here.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Okay. What were your aspirations as a, well, I guess we would call them tweens now, like, in your 12, 13, 14? What were your aspirations? What did you wanna do?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I wanted to play sports, football, baseball. I played football and baseball.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  And I was like, I'm gonna be a, 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.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  So did you start out as a DJ? Like, how does music enter your life as far as like?

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Nah, I got the fever for breakdancing. So breakdancing came out, and 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 Rocket.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  DST, everybody was a little turntable with the cassette in it, you know, with the radio in it, all that, so, we didn't know what a scratchpad was, we was in there trying to cut it, the needles was jumping, and that's when I caught, started catching the fever a little bit. And then when I seen DST, I think it was the American Music Awards or the Grammys?

• 6:26Speaker 02

  That was the Grammys.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  That turned me out right there.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  I was like, oh shit, what is this? It was like some futuristic shit.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  So that was your, that was your come-to-Jesus moment with it? Did you have any experiences with any crews pre-'783, or like?

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Well, Cypress, I was down with Cypress before, the crew was called DVX.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Devastating Vocal Excellence.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  And it was about seven, eight of us, Melo Man Ace.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  B Real, San, T-Bone, who actually ended up being in the funk dubious.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  So you all a crew?

• 6:58Speaker 03

  It was a crew.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Even way before they got established?

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Before I met them, yeah. And then, one of my boys was, went out to Hollywood, he's like, yo, I just met these two kids from Brooklyn, you gotta meet them. Came out to Hollywood, met them, and I was throwing a jam in a park in Bell Gardens, and '783 had a record out on McCullough Records called '783 Will Rock You, which was a remake of We Will Rock You.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  We Will Rock You.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  And I was like, yo, you guys wanna come play my party? We didn't know nobody with a record out at that time, so that was big for us. So they came, and the DJ didn't show up, so a DJ form, and they said, you wanna be our DJ? We're doing three shows with Ice-T next week. And one was at Oscars, you know, a couple of them, one was, there was a club where the Beverly Center is now.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  We played there, and we did the three shows, and then about three months later, we was in the studio recording for Colors, the song Mad Mad World.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Okay. And that's how you guys become solidified. So you're saying you were throwing jams, like, what, as a promoter, or just as a DJ, or?

• 8:00Speaker 03

  DJ, promoter. 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 caroms, and basketball, and dodgeball, and, you know, playing Little League at the park and shit, and he gave us the little hall at the park.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Five dollars to get in, and we threw the jam, and it was banging, and that was the beginning of it all.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Okay, so I've always heard of the folklore of early hip-hop starting out in the parks and whatnot, 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 80s of California?

• 8:46Speaker 03

  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, there 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 Jams. I would go out by the airport, they'd have it in a hotel, anything I can.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Please tell me what that was like.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  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, Casa Camino Real was the other one.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  World on Wheels is a roller skating?

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Roller skating ring, yeah. Greg Mack used to do that with Tony G and M Walk.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  That's where Ice Cube and all those guys started?

• 9:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. There was World on Wheels, there was Skate Land USA, and then I'd go to the Radiotron. Radiotron by MacArthur Park downtown, and just absorb, because there was nowhere to see it or hear, 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 shit.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Okay. So in developing '783, for starters, I got familiar with these guys, because, you know, once I heard Nation of Millions, then I needed anything associated with the Bomb Squad, so they produced it, I brought the entire records and studied them all. What's different about seventy-three is that, well, 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 Nicol is associated with it.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  So wherever Joe goes, I'm pretty sure Andy Kravitz is behind him.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, when Andy was there.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  And all the, yeah, the usual suspects in Philly. I'm from Philly. So, like, Drums of Steel and all that stuff, to me, was, like, shit that The Goats wanted them doing, and then Rage Against the 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 drumming, because I know his drum texture. Who's on bass?

• 11:03Speaker 03

  Was it, um, Mike? Mike?

• 11:05Speaker 02

  No, not Blonde, ah, Pop School Love.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Uh, he's on MTV Unplugged with LL playing, uh, Mama Said Knock You. That was him?

• 11:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna say, what is- Mike Tyler, by the way. Mike Tyler, yes, okay. How receptive were you to those ideas when it, when it was presented to you?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Well, it was interesting, because I had all these ideas. I had records, like, and, you know, I was eighteen, and, um, they wasn't gonna give, I didn't produce nothing yet.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  How much agency did you have in suggesting what-

• 11:34Speaker 03

  We was in Philly, because Jeff Fenster signed us at Geffen. Then they was big, they was big fans of PSK, so-

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  They want Joe to butcher work. And it was the first record-

• 11:41Speaker 02

  So the Schoolie shout-out is from Schoolie D?

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Schoolie actually programmed drums on a couple songs.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. I heard the word "Schoolie."

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Schoolie Cash, Wandy, um, Jazz, Jazz, Jazz, um, Jazz, and, um, I think it was Robbie, Robbie, what was the rapper's name? Robbie G, Robbie B?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, they all, they all programmed. They all would come in and 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 I learned. I got a crash course in how to make music in a month.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Back then, what was your weapon of choice? Based on the sonic of it, I'm assuming that's a twelve-hundred, that-

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Twelve-hundred. I didn't have a twelve-hundred yet, though. So, the seventy-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. You know, I was into, I was into Yo Bum Rush the Show. I was into Ultra Magnetic. I was, Bebop was a big inspiration on me, the Ramell Z 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 a SP twelve-hundred. And then I just-

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Who taught you?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  Kid named Bilal, that was down with Rhyme Syndicate. He showed me. I'd call him up if I got stuck. And, um, I made whack beats for about a year, you know, and then one day, we did real estate, and it just sounded like, it sounded like a record.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  That was the first time you proud to play?

• 12:59Speaker 03

  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, push record on the cassette, and be real, just one take. And that was our demos. And that's how we, that's how we started out.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  That's how y'all got the deal? Damn, okay.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  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, um, we got a, um, a publishing deal with BMG, and they gave us some money to go in the studio. Then we recorded Funky Feel One, um, Light Another, and Kill a Man, and a song called Caliente, which was a Spanish song that wasn't on the record, and that was our demo.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  That got us the deal.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  So you made all those, even before, but once you got the deal, did you remake those records again, or you just tried to-

• 13:43Speaker 03

  No, I think it was like a three-year period while we was working, till we got the deal two years. So if you notice all the breaks in those songs, it was just me getting bored and just revisiting them, just keep adding and adding and adding over that period of time.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  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 breaks.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Like-

• 14:11Speaker 03

  Oh, I couldn't wait for the next one to come out.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  A different combination. See, I discovered it eighty-nine, when, like, all twenty were already out. But, so you were getting them in real time, and, and-

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  How, how long would releases be in between?

• 14:26Speaker 03

  I don't remember exactly, but I'd 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. When'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, I'd be in the ninety-nine cent bin, and just pulling out the ninety-nine cent bin 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 used, used a 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.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I'm glad you did.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Because I remember, I remember making that record. All the homies was just driving around, bumping it every day, you know? We'd give cassettes out in the neighborhood.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  And I was like, "Man, I'm glad we put that shit out, because, uh, it would've been cold if we didn't."

• 15:18Speaker 02

  I think the day that you guys mastered, so I started interning at Rough House, right when, um, Black Sunday came out, or slightly before. But Han Sol had gotten a copy of you guys' cassette, and this is right when Tariq and I were first just, like, busking on the streets or whatever. And so, you know, we saw Han Sol, and that was like, "Oh, God, Philadelphia celebrities checking us out." And so he gave us a lift, and he played that entire record on the way home. We were just, like, mind-blown, 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

• 16:01Speaker 02

  went jazz. Pete Rock was going jazz, Premier was going jazz, Q-Tip. You were going psychedelic-

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Rock and psychedelic soul, especially blues. And I assume that's because of the influence that you grew up in, listening to.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, you grown up with that, and all the, you know, all the Vietnam rock, Creed is Clearwater, you know, all that type of stuff.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  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 to Walk, and especially at the end, like, just, can you talk about the process of, of putting that record together? Because it just sounds like nothing that was ever released, and a lot of rule-breaking on it, like-

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, very unorthodox, 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, uh, have, um, 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, and West Coast MCs, so it was a whole new sound and style. And, um, we'd, um, do the demos at the house. I, by that time, I got a task cam four-track, and if it didn't sound good on the four-track, we wouldn't record it in the studio. And, uh, you know, just piecing away, piecing away. And, um, 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 Oakwood with, um, Brett from seventy-three.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  And I played that beat, and he's like, "Yo, I like that beat." And I go, "I don't like it." He goes, "Let me write to it." I'm like, "All right, let me let you write to it." He wrote Hand on the Pump.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Oh, word, okay.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, he wrote the first verse, the hook, and the second, he goes, and he wrote it for B Real. And, um, it sounded cool. We recorded it, but we went into the studio. It came alive, man. And, um, I was high as hell in the studio, and I didn't have patience to wait for them to hook the MIDI up to the drum machine. So all the eight oh eights, I'd play live. They was on, some of them were a little in front, some were a little behind.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  That adds to the charm for me.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  And then going into the hooks, boom, boom, ba-boom, boom, boom, and, um, all the little sounds, I'd 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.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  You guys came to, to Philadelphia to actually record it. How many weeks or months did it take to record the album?

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Most of it was recorded, I think we was probably in Philly for about a month, staying at the Comfort Inn, right there.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Delaware Avenue.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Same place we stayed with seventy-three, you know, just, just walk over to four-four-four, Fourth Street, go down to the basement, get myself some chicken soup or something, you know, the little, the little stand they had right there?

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Go downstairs and just lock in, man. And, um, most of the record was done. We recorded, I think, um, Latin Lingo in Philly, and then, uh, probably the only extra song we've recorded in Philly was that one. Then the album was pretty much done. I came back to LA, and Joe was like, "We need two more songs." And then that's when we did, um, Holding the Head, and we did, uh, Stone is the Way to Walk.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  Man, I'm a black and Mexican kid from San Pedro, and I grew up in Inglewood as well. I never liked to be boxed in. Both of my parents colored outside of the line. I mean, even them being together at the time in L.A. was just not typical. And so I think that has always been a part of my DNA. There's a defiant something in me that feels like what we get to do with what we're given that's greater than us is to maybe connect people to ideas that they wouldn't naturally, you know, connect to. That's really me. I'm just kind of like defiant with love, though.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:04Speaker 05

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• 20:42Speaker 02

  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 nority, your...

• 20:59Speaker 03

  Nah, man. I just wanted to make a record where all my peers gave me respect. That was the main thing. Make a record. I figured we'd sell about 100, 150,000 if we did. 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 60,000, sold about two records. We came out at 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 20 people in the morning, eating, while they're eating eggs. We did, playing in the clubs, 16 people, you know what I mean? Doing the morning shows, doing the mix shows, doing the local presses, doing everything, going city to city. And it wasn't popping, but everybody loved our record.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  We was like, what's going on? And then we had two days off on tour. We was on a Naughty by Nature tour, and we was doing BET in DC. Two days off, then we drove up to New York. We'd shot Kill a Man, and we shot Hand on the Pump, back to back. That's why they're in New York.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  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 Sin Dog. But I remember watching you, I'm like, wait a minute. I didn't know you rapped, but was that Sin Dog's?

• 22:18Speaker 03

  It was Sin Dog on the thing, but Sin Dog had that backup voice. So he was like, let's, let's just, I'll do the video. He was like, you do the video, so it looked like, threw it off a little bit.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  So then MTV Raps started playing it. 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 hear shit. So the combination of that, Stretch and Bobbito playing our record, and then Juice, the Juice soundtrack, and all those things coming together, we just, we went all the way up to number three. We started selling 60, 70, 80,000 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 gonna get radio with How I Could Kill a Man.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Right. 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, B-Ril, of course, he has a natural gift with his voice, but I know Flav has pioneered a second general role, as in hype man, or the second guy in Back of the Captain, but in my book, like, Sin Dog is one of the greatest backing voices of all time in hip-hop. And you hear his confidence each song, each, you know, each step of the way, you hear his confidence get better. Why?

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Why would you guys, and I understand that Juice was a high-profile thing, but for me, like, Shoot 'Em Up deserved to be on an album so that people would know. But, I mean, Juice was successful, so people knew, but why throw that away?

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Well, we made that specifically for the movie. 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.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, but Shoot 'Em Up is just made for the soundtrack.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  I would say, like, around the time that Black Sunday is coming out, would you say that there's 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 look 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 you just talk about the whole experiences in doing, like, alt tours and with Lollapalooza and a whole different audience embracing you guys?

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, we had, we had that rock and roll energy, our band did, 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, you know, open up the fanbase. And first time we did it was Lollapalooza, it was the second stage, and we killed it. Everybody came, killed it, killed it. And then, you know, just started opening up things and just started putting us on with different people. We played with Metallica one night, next show we're playing with Bjork, 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, and hip-hop bands all had that energy. You know, so that was a big influence for us at that time.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  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...

• 25:59Speaker 03

  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 and smoke weed. You know, and then we was doing Woodstock, and B-Ril 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 gonna start rolling with Cypress. We invited him in the band at that point. We liked the dynamics, what it brought on stage, percussion was killing, it fit right into what we, what we was doing and shit. So that was, that was big for us to add Bobo.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Since, you know, the days of Fat Five Freddie trying to bring the punk thing together with the hip-hop thing in the Village and 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, opening for the Beastie Boys, and then doing stuff with Beck and certain rock groups, Rage 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? Like...

• 27:11Speaker 03

  We loved it, because they were wild. They'd start slam dancing, you know, the kids were just losing...

• 27:15Speaker 02

  So they were open to it and...

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Wide open to it. They loved us. Yeah, they loved it. So we just embraced it, man. We just rolled with it, like, what's going on next? Let's go, you know?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  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 keep the momentum going.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, we was touring, man. We toured like seven months for that record, first album. And the label hit us and 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?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Eight to the motherfucking K.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Eight 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 10 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...

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Where did you record the second album?

• 28:11Speaker 03

  New York.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, the second album was in New York, and then, you know, went down to Philly and mixed it and recorded it, and...

• 28:21Speaker 03

  I'd said I would never rush a record again in 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 album was three years. First album was pretty much our whole lives, right?

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Every idea we've ever had.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  So, you know, the second one was rushed and, um...

• 28:37Speaker 02

  History shows that Rush jobs yield also the most successful. I can name you 20 songs that were literally made like on the, like, Isley Brothers have this story of making "Shout" literally in seven minutes. They had seven minutes left. Like, "Oh, let's do that church song real quick." And then they freestyled it.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  And I was listening to Black Sabbath a lot in a group called Ministry. Uh-huh. You know, listening to Ministry and, um, 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 beat, let's rap on this beat, I made this beat, let's rap on this beat."

• 29:11Speaker 02

  What is your creative process in terms of putting things together? Cause I mean, 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 records completely and then take notes on, "I'll take that, I'll take that," or?

• 29:36Speaker 03

  I 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 in the chorus that wasn't in the verses. Second verse comes in, you either put a break that you haven't heard yet, or introduce a new sound.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  That didn't play yet, you know what I mean? And then, um, 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. "Okay, I'm bored of this section right here, it needs some, 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 "Be Rude," it wouldn't end like it started, you know what I mean? Some songs I'd remix and just, "Oh, can I add time, can I make this better?" And I'd just go in and flip it, put a new beat on it.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, the break in "Kill a Man," that eight-second, or eight-bar break that you do before the, the last verse, the way we would just freestyle over that part and make pause tapes over that shit, like...

• 30:34Speaker 03

  That was a whole nother beat that, that was good. It, 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 made.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Like, especially with the Cypress Hill timeline. You, you hear the metamorphosis of the group. Like, I hear stuff that you make on 1200. Like, is 1200 still your, your favorite weapon of choice, but?

• 31:05Speaker 03

  I'm in the box now, pretty much. I'm straight all in the box.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Really?

• 31:09Speaker 03

  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 to get my sound. Learning to use the right plugins and everything.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  How hard is it to let go of what you know, like, the back-of-hand muscle memories?

• 31:23Speaker 03

  It was hard at the beginning. Like, you know, at the beginning it was hard, but, um, I think on the third album, I started using the ASR-10, and I started using more live instruments as well, a lot of live, um, fretless basses.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  What prompted you to make that change?

• 31:38Speaker 03

  I needed more sampling time. Cause at one point, I was having three or four SP12s lined up.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  You was doing Bomb Squad style?

• 31:44Speaker 03

  I, I only had, you know, 10 seconds of sampling time, and I wanted like, an eight-second sample. Like, for "Illusions," it was 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-10, and he was like, "Yo, you could loop it in here." So, he 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 SP1200. But all the drums would happen in the SP1200. I didn't like how the ASR sounded for the drums. But I'd put samples in the ASR-10, the long samples.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Okay, so the, your, your musical stuff would go in the ASR-10, but you still kept your?

• 32:19Speaker 03

  All the drums and SP.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  All right, so, for you, what's your best kick, your best snare? I know it's super nerdy, but trust me, we, we wanna know these things, like, what is your go-to, as far as like, your best texture?

• 32:34Speaker 03

  I had, I had, um, a couple 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.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Is there an isolated kick in "Tramp" that will?

• 32:45Speaker 03

  You know, there's 15 versions of "Tramp," right? So, I started...

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Oh, Otis and, I forgot, Otis and Carlos' version.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  I grabbed that one, and I had 1-808 I would always use. And then a lot of snares I would get from hip-hop instrumentals.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  You know, I was like, "Oh, that's a, that's a hit song, that snare's banging." So, I mean, if it's a hit on that one, it's gonna be a hit on this one. You know, so I'd, I'd take your customer snare. I, even for "Kill a Man," for the drums, I actually took the De La Soul, had a little break from the Manziel record.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  I didn't have the original Manziel record, so I got it from the De La Soul, and it still had the 808s in it, if you listen to it. "Plug Tuning" was my shit. That blew my mind when I heard that. So, "Kill a Man" started off, I wanted to make "Plug Tuning."

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Word.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  So, that was my, me trying to, you know, my version of "Plug Tuning." Even you hear the bass, "Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom."

• 33:37Speaker 02

  I hear it now.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  "Doo, doo, doo, doo," you know what I'm saying?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  You gotta hear, um, I don't know if you recently heard it, but, uh, you know, because of, of the anniversaries coming up for like, all the De La stuff, they put the original, like, muddy four-track demo of "Plug Tuning."

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Oh, man, yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  And potholes and, uh...

• 34:00Speaker 03

  All those Prince Paul records, man, like, the De La Soul changed my life when I heard it. And you knew, in the 80s, from 87 to like, 89, every week, hip-hop was reinvented.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  You know, and I was just like, "Damn."

• 34:13Speaker 02

  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 you these questions. If you listened to, uh, the first Criss Cross record, did anything like, sound familiar to you at all as far as all those drums were concerned?

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Okay, so, it wasn't just me?

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Not at all. I even, there's even a little squeak in the record.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Dog!

• 34:43Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 34:43Speaker 02

  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 4, and I went to the back of like, Andy's room, which is 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." Cause literally, it was like, four songs, I was like, "Wow," like...

• 35:14Speaker 03

  It was like, you know, Cypress Hill meets Naughty by Nature. It's like, you could tell all the Naughty by Nature, and it was like...

• 35:20Speaker 02

  And I, I wanted to know how you felt about that, like...

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I'll tell you an interesting story, though. I, um, I sent Joe the Butcher the, um, "Jump Around" demo.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Now, I wanna get to that part, too.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  And they wanted to sign it.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Before that, I had already heard the, I was going to Jack the Rapper, and I heard the Criss 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 wanna sign 'House of Pain' no more." Cool. Then, cut to a few months later, then I hear the "Jump" demo. That's why you get, "This is dedicated to Joe the Butcher Nicola." You know, and it wasn't, I probably wasn't Joe, but somebody heard the record, you know, and...

• 36:02Speaker 02

  I was gonna 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 them, but?

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Well, that was Everlast. He's like, "Don't take that off the song, I'm leaving that, fuck them."

• 36:13Speaker 02

  What did Joe say to you?

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Joe was like, "Muggs, what's going on? I had nothing to do with it, wasn't that..." I was like, "Yeah, but Joe's kinda funny, we gave you the record, it wasn't on their demo, you played me the demo, and all of a sudden, you don't wanna sign us, but now you have a song called 'Jump.'"

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Have you seen this, the, the recent commercial where they actually kept that part in?

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Which one?

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Ah, damn. "Jump Around" just recently got licensed for a commercial that I saw during the Super Bowl.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Oh, right, for the Volkswagen.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and in the fade-out, they still kept in, "This is dedicated." I was like, "Wait, they from their own 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 textures.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  For the longest, I would ask, like, "I know the SP1200 pads are here somewhere, like, they gotta be his, let me hear his drums," but not the case.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. What still makes you just sit down at the piano?

• 37:36Speaker 06

  If you sat down at 9:00 AM and then at noon, you had a full song that you recorded and put in your voice recorder or you recorded at your studio.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  You just created something brand new that didn't exist when you woke up.

• 37:49Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  What a beautiful feeling it is.

• 37:51Speaker 06

  I'm always excited to write something new. I've been writing for Broadway, which has been a new challenge with new collaborators and these amazing performers who are triple threats, who can sing and dance and act and do all these amazing things. And I want to keep feeling that. And so that means not resting on my laurels, going out there and continuing to create something new.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 38:20Speaker 07

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• 39:01Speaker 02

  What are the five records that 90s-era mugs would save in a fire? In terms of just your all-time favorites that you would probably, um, Jimi Hendrix?

• 39:13Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  If you hear Killer Man, I sampled him in the chorus.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  You know?

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  That record, um, Tramp for sure. At the time, it was Tramp. It was, um, anything with a jazz stand-up bass, whatever that might be at the time. I was all about putting jazz stand-up basses in there. And then, um, Barquays. Barquays, I sampled a lot of Barquays. Little pieces, though, because you know, with the SP12, you didn't have a lot of sampling time. So it would be a lot of little pieces, all mixed up in there. And then, um... Did you mind the, the digital distortion of a 1200? 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?

• 39:54Speaker 03

  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'd put it on 45, sample it into 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 KDAY. And KDAY at night, a Spanish station would come on around 6 o'clock. So you'd hear, it's AM radio, first of all.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  And then you'd get the Spanish station. So it's dusty, it sounds like shit, so.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  You were used to that, too?

• 40:22Speaker 03

  I was used to that sound.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, because especially like, let me think of a good example.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  You know?

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Oh, Cold Feet. Uh, using all the stabs, like all of your, the, who did Cold Feet?

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Albert King.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Like, those stabs, you know, once processed through the 1200, it's digitally distorted, which I always wanted to know if people embraced the distortion of it all or if they were long in for a day where now, you know, sonic perfection comes along.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  I didn't care about being sonic perfectionist at all. I was about vibe, just straight vibe, 100%. 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. I like, I want my shit dirty.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  All right. So you're a House of Pain production. Did you do the entire first?

• 41:15Speaker 03

  No, I did about eight because we was on the road so much. Then, um, their DJ didn't make beats 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. So.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Did you do Come and Get Some of This?

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Shit Kickers?

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  All right. That's what I care about. Danny Boy?

• 41:39Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  I knew it. I was like, Danny Boy's is a little too clean for it. I was trying to differentiate between the two. For Jump Around, at least, did you expect at all that that was going to take off as much as it did?

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Not at all, bro.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Like, it's forever.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  I had that beat and like, I would demo beats with different rappers and they'd come through, but if you didn't kill it, you couldn't have the beat. Son Doobie rapped on it. He used to rap on a lot of beats because he was just, he was 16 years old. He was the homie, he was Sean's homie from 783.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  So he lived down the blocks. He'd come over and just rap on shit. So he rapped on it. I demoed it with Daddy Freddie.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  Because I did like four joints with him because I was a big Ragga Muffin hip hop fan.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  And then, um, I actually played it for Cube, passed on it, and then, um, 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 Flex hit me. He was working at Priority. Flex and him wanted to sign it, um, offered a $65,000. And then one day I got a call from Tommy Boy, which was Monica Lynch. And, um, she's like, Mugs, this reminds me of my, she's Irish. She goes, this reminds me of my brothers. They go to church, then they go to the bars and get drunk and get in fights.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  And, um, it was the perfect place. So I told House of Pain, you know, let's, let's roll with her. And then, um, we got the same guy to do their video, Shady Perez, the same Mike Miller to shoot their album cover, the same guy that did us, got the same management. And, um, you know, she knew what to do with the whole Irish vibe. And, um, you know, they went to the Irish Day Parade and that song took off. And you'd never expect nothing like that to happen. You know, I liked the record. I didn't think it was a great record, but I liked the record.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  I feel like that song is the September of hip hop.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Like, Earth, Wind & Fire had, you know, all these songs that identify them, but at the end of the day, it's like a filler song from the greatest hits album that winds up, same with Run DMC, 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 day.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It's crazy.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  All right. Question I've been dying to ask you. Did you produce Sometimes in Neighborhood for Called the Wild?

• 44:01Speaker 03

  No, I didn't.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  And I remember you asked me one time if I, yo, I need that single. And I didn't have any. And you was like, yeah, right, you don't got any. And I'm like, I think we was on the smoking grooves.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  Yes. I think Sean C. produced that record.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  What?

• 44:14Speaker 03

  I think Sean C. might have produced it. That and Clouds of Smoke.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I want to ask about Daddy Freddie and Funk Dubious also, but where did they come from? Called the Wild?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Called the Wild's from the Polo Grounds, you know, 155th and St. Nick. And, um, I had met them and then I just started working with them. And, uh, you know, I was busy and stuff. We was doing demos and then they was doing records with, with Sean C. was up in their neighborhood. So they came with that one day and I was like, yo, that beat is crazy.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  To this day, that beat rules my life. Shout out to Cosmic Kev in Philadelphia for putting me onto that. He just spun the Jesus out of it on radio one day. And like, to this day, that, that rolling piano's down.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Oh, man. And I would flips, the pitch change and comes back?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Has ruled, yes.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Drums and everything. I actually got a Called the Wild album. We never put it out. I got a whole album. It's banging, too.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Wait, what happened?

• 45:08Speaker 03

  We signed, um, we signed to Chris, Chris Schwartz signed us.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  They were going to be on Rough House?

• 45:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then, um, 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 tried to do some of those, those soul records that 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 hell, just let us go.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Do you still have that record?

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  I gotta hear that record, man.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  I'll shoot it over to you.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Please.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  I was like, goddamn.

• 45:46Speaker 03

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

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Okay. That's a shame, man, because, uh, every day I was going to like records, anything new, anything new, and it never came out. What did that 12-inch come out on, then?

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Uh, I started the label, just Eastside Records, just printed it up ourselves, make like a few hundred copies and...

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Damn. All right, so I got lucky.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  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?

• 46:24Speaker 03

  That was, um, so we had Son, who was trying to be Big Daddy Kane, dressed like Kane, rap like Kane, you know, he was Sean's little homie. And then, um, we had T-Bone, who was down with Cypress from the DVX crew. And then, um, Ralph M. was Kid Frost DJ. And so we was like, let's put these guys together and make a group. Now, B-Ro had a song called The Funk Dubious that was actually on the A to the K beat.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Before we did A to the K.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  And we was like, let's call them the funk dubious 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 rap, let's make a group of them.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  I guess the unveiling or the, the unleashing of, of the mug sound in hip hop was your collaborative work with Ice Cube.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  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 in 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 Das never actually dropped a verse on Check Yourself? Like you just had them for the course or?

• 47:40Speaker 03

  That was all Cube. Yeah, Cube was, after he had, I sent him the beat. He's like, I'm gonna get Das effects on this.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Okay. So you would just send the beats, send the tapes out and then let them do it?

• 47:49Speaker 03

  I had nothing to do with it. I mixed it, but that was it.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. Normally when a DJ from a crew gets prominence as a producer, nine times out of 10, like I'll see a situation in which they'll get a replacement touring DJ to tour with 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?

• 48:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have about, probably about the last 12 years I stopped touring.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  So you're not?

• 48:23Speaker 03

  I don't tour no more.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  No, I just wanted to make sure, you know, I used to watch Behind the Music and everything and I seen every rock star's biggest regret was not being able to raise their children. You know what I mean? So I was like, nah, I'm gonna make sure I raise my kids.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  And I just like being in the studio and being creative, you know, cause sometimes doing the same setlist night after night and being on the road, it just felt like a robot. I wanna switch the setlist up and, you know, do crazy things on tour, but I was just like, man, it's getting boring. And it was hard.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  How hard was that to?

• 48:52Speaker 03

  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 I, you know, I wasn't making beats fa- I make beats fast now.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Competitive, especially in that era of like, who's gonna get this break first and?

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Yo, I'd be on tour and come home and be right in the studio. Go back on tour, come home and be right in the 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 is driving you crazy. I didn't know it was driving me crazy till I look back at the time. There was no breaks. And it was hard. It was hard to like make beats, you know, I probably.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Would you have a little operation on, on your tour bus?

• 49:31Speaker 03

  I tried, you know, but you're trying to play a record and the bus is bouncing. He's trying to record. Everybody's on the bus. You know, we had 12 people on the bus. So it wasn't, and you're tired on tour and shit. So it was hard. And, um, you know, I was making about a beat a week back then. So yeah, I'd have to come home and I gotta turn this album in, you know, a month. So I just have to make, try to make, I learned to make beats faster. But, um, at that time it was a little bit difficult, man.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Every producer I know has a, a one that got away in terms of like, well, you mentioned that you were almost not gonna release Kill a Man.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Criminal. But has there ever been like a particular sample that you had something for that you held back in the last minute because it's already out there in the?

• 50:16Speaker 03

  So after Black Sunday, after, um, the record got so big and you know, um, Insane in the Brain blew the fuck up.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Then we started getting the backlash. Oh, they sold out. They did this. They went rock. So I was like.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  But you were always doing what you were doing.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Exactly, but you know.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Like Insane in the Brain could have been on the first record.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  We never went out of our way to make a hit. It's the same records we made. And, and what I knew with Insane in the Brain, I was like, they didn't get enough of that sound yet. So let me make another version of Kill a Man is what Insane in the Brain was. Let me make, let me, if you listen to the bassline.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  So with the breaks 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 sound. 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.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  Which one?

• 51:10Speaker 03

  Uh, it's, uh, what's it go? Um, what's that name? It, it's called In the City of Angels.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:16Speaker 03

  In the city of angels where the hustlers play and the ballers be dropping a vamp that all day. It's a banger.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  You mentioned something about texture and you gotta, you gotta sell this once and for all. Jump Around. What is the shrill noise for real? There's, there's, there's this battle.

• 51:35Speaker 03

  I never cleared the sample though. So you wanna beep it out?

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Look, if it's who I think it is, that person's lo- has been long gone for 10 years.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  No, it's not Prince.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Dog. Okay. So it is indeed ****. But you hear what we hear.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Prince thought it was Prince too.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  He came to you at?

• 51:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. When we was in Minnesota one time, they go, hey, 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.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Wait, what? So how did he approach you about it?

• 52:13Speaker 03

  Well, he was downstairs and I guess he was upstairs and then somebody had, you know, boom, boom, boom. And I went upstairs and just talked to him for a second and, um, let him know. And he just looked at me like.

• 52:26Speaker 03

  I think once he heard, I think once he heard what it was, it made sense.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  I, okay. So I went back and heard it.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  But I couldn't mistake it. I couldn't mistake it for that.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  I'd still love the lure of it being, we, we all thought that the Get Off Yell was a distorted, whatever the distorted shrill is in, uh, Jump Around, when of course it was just.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  And you know, we just got popped for that sample, I think about five years ago.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Wait, so it's still?

• 52:53Speaker 03

  It 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 it was, if they was able to go back 20 years, it would have been cold as, cold as ice for us. But yeah, it was, um, Chubby Checker.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  For what song?

• 53:09Speaker 03

  I can't remember the song. That's it.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  That's Chubby Checker?

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's that. And then it just goes into a hole. It goes into some hole of the shit.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  Okay. I, I, wow. I didn't know that.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  And it's the same drums from Hand on the Pump. Same tramp.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  It is.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Tramp drums and the same, the same hi hats at the whole same kit.

• 53:29Speaker 02

  Like how exhausting was that period of hip hop where, I mean, that's the period I missed the most where it was just the gold rush wild west of sample clearing and not sample clearing, just.

• 53:42Speaker 03

  Putting records out.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  Just barrage of, of samples on top of each other, which I miss it so much.

• 53:47Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  But how nightmarish was it just to make a record in say 1995 or 96 where your hands are sort of tied behind your back because what you're known for sonically, you can't?

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Well, the first album, when it was done, Chris Schwartz told me like this. He goes, we ain't gonna clear these samples. This record will never come out. We're just gonna put this record out and deal with it later.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  And, um, we got hit for samples for the next 15 years. You know what I mean?

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Oh, so you did have to pay a price?

• 54:18Speaker 03

  We paid 50 grand for Duke of Earl.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 54:20Speaker 03

  You know, we, we paid, we, we, we paid, we paid for everything. And I told Ice Cube that one day. He goes, 50 grand for a hit? I'll do that any day. And then it made me, I go, oh, that shit makes sense to me. I never thought about it like that. But by the time I got to Temple of Boom, I started implementing a lot of more live instruments. So there's a lot of live basslines on there with just, you know, live organ sounds and stuff all ran through the SP 1200 to give him that dust. But at that time I just was like, then I had to start turning samples in. The, the B and Sam was looking at me like, better clear these fucking samples, man. This shit's costing us a lot of money when we get another, you know, 50, hundred thousand dollar lawsuit. Then we got hit for, um, Sil Johnson interlude on, um, on Black Sunday.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  That because I'm black?

• 55:04Speaker 03

  Yep. 20 million dollar lawsuit.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Wait, what?

• 55:07Speaker 03

  20 million dollars froze everybody's publishing, froze everybody's royalties for a couple of years.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Where'd they get 20 million from?

• 55:14Speaker 03

  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. It's, it, the hit song's the single and drove it. I go, that's a 31 second record.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Okay. I had no for a fact that I first heard Is It Become Something Black on that record.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  And I'm one of the dweebs and nerds that will read the sample credit or whatever, or no, and then buy Sil Johnson and then buy more Sil Johnson.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  And they logically can't see that that's benefiting them.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  I don't think he's seen it like that. I think he was just trying to get as much as he can. So, um, thank God I've recorded, I got it from the 45, which I think the laws changed by the time they started, by the time it was on the album for the songwriters.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Um, they ended up getting 300,000 and then they appealed it. And then, um, the judge got mad. He goes, you know what? Now you don't get shit. Now you gotta pay their law fees. So it, it ended up working out, it ended up working out good for us, man. Um, the guy, he, he got real greedy and they was, they was aggressive in the, in the, um, we had to sit down and give testimonies and all this shit. Lawyers were yelling at us. It was like three days of sitting down, depositions and shit like that.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  What you had to go through?

• 56:35Speaker 03

  For an interlude. I was like, God damn, 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?

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  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 you was putting underground records out, it's a different thing. But at that point, soon as that record comes out, they're playing, they're, they're looking for shit.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  And the label don't wanna give up their masters, you know, so the label is extra too, you know, they're writing that shit in the contracts. You are liable for all the samples now.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. How does music actually enter your mind?

• 57:45Speaker 06

  I'm not sure why or how the music comes to me, but I think people who love music and write music, our brains are just filled with music.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:55Speaker 06

  Like, we have listened to so much music, we've been a part of so much music. I think of the story that I want to tell, the mood that I want to create with the music, start playing chords, see where they lead me.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Sometimes, I'm just not even thinking about music, right? And I hear this little thing, and I go, oh, that could be this.

• 58:17Speaker 06

  You know, you just have to be ready for when the inspiration hits.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  It comes.

• 58:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 58:30Speaker 05

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• 59:12Speaker 02

  In prime Cypress Hill touring lore, how hard was it being advocates of cannabis use and weed use in kind of an outlaw form? Like, you know?

• 59:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Were there some towns in which you guys knew you had to go dry?

• 59:30Speaker 03

  The cops, they 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 outlaw shit. You know what I mean? That's when I actually dug it. But, um, yeah, there was times, you know, especially Texas, Arizona, the cops waiting for us, waiting for us, don't light up. They were standing there waiting for you to light up. So we got a lot of that, especially like in the Bible Belt. And, um,

• 59:55Speaker 02

  How would you handle it?

• 59:56Speaker 03

  We just wouldn't smoke on stage that night.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  Really?

• 59:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  Okay, so I directed the Saturday Night Live documentary about music acts on the show. And 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 SNL. Can you talk about the whole SNL incident? Because you actually came from behind the turntables.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  And set it off and said,

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  I said, um, in New York, can I light my joint? You know, so we're in the green room doing rehearsals.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  And I'm just rolling some weed, and they don't light up on stage. And I'm like,

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  Okay. Don't light up on stage 15 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 guessing myself. And I was like, man, fuck them. I'm gonna light up on stage, but don't do it on the first song, because they're not gonna 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 to, the phone lines started going crazy, the crowd started looking around, everybody's calling in, what the fuck they doing? What the fuck they doing? And, um, you know, um, we started smashing the turntables, because we would smash all our turntables like the Who. So I, you know, on tour, smashing everything like insane in the brain. So, you know, doing all that.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  And after the show, well, they let me have it. The label, the executives up there, B. Sam was mad at me.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  And I was just like, man, fuck this shit. You know what I mean? Hey, 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.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  Right. Well, now that it's legal and like, you know,

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Now, now it's,

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  commercialized.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  Now it's corny.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Right, I was gonna say, do you now feel it's corny?

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  No, 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 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.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Have you guys opened a dispensary at least?

• 1:02:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, B-Ro has.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  B-Ro has.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  I was about to say, if there's not a Cypress Hill dispensary, then this is all for naught.

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's called Dr. Green Thumb.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  And, you know, it's just, we just took the torch from Bob Marley, you know what I mean? And, and all the acts of the 60s. And it was like, let's just bring this, this thing, and let's try to make this legal. So we was doing fundraisers for Normal, the National Organization Reform of 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, all right, this boring now.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  I figured as much. At the height of just the frenzy that was Cypress Hill, I always wanted to know, has Hollywood ever come calling to you guys at all? Like, especially in terms of like what Cheech and Chong films meant in the 70s or whatever, that at any point?

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Nah, they haven't, they haven't.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  No. The only thing we did close enough was we did, um, I think we have a scene in How High?

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Were you involved at all with the, okay, as a longtime Simpsons fan? Of course, Simpsons heads know that there was a Cypress Hill joke made with the London Philharmonic, whatever. And then, I think recently, or maybe a year ago or two years ago, it finally, that joke finally came to life with,

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, Cypress Hill, this, the, there was, I wasn't there. DJ Lord tours with him now from Public Enemy.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Okay, okay.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's dope.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Okay. Damn, see, you didn't have to do with that. I want to talk about your, your collaboration LPs that you've done. Soul Assassins was your, your very first outing outside of the group as far as?

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  Soul Assassins is a crew, like, so once we start putting out albums, we had,

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  I meant the compilation LP.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  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 those studio sessions, and there's 10 producers waiting for their turn to go play beats.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  Cataclysm.

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  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 a reason I didn't do a lot of production outside. I've done records, but I just said, you know what? I'm gonna build my own worlds from now on and work with artists and produce the whole record and, and do the Soul Assassins records now.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  In the cattle called era of, yo, make me beat, make me beat like Who? Well, I know you got something on Goodie Mob.

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  Well, there was my friends.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  That was what I was saying, that was a very random,

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  I used to go to Atlanta and just rent a studio for a week and record. Like, I probably got five or six more Goodie Mob songs, you know, so.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  What was it about Atlanta that called you there?

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  I just connected with, when I met Goodie Mob, we just became friends automatically. So I would go down there just to go fuck with them.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm renting a studio, y'all in town? Just go down, I'd make beats, and then they'd pull up when they could pull up and just record.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  When we ended up doing, one record we did was just a song, it was on, um,

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Still Standing, the second album?

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  No, that was Inshallah.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:05:31Speaker 03

  No, but we did just a song for the Spike Lee movie, Bamboozled.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  Ah, okay. Oh, shit.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I gotta, I gotta play you the original. It's fucking fire.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  Okay. If anything, I always felt that you were the next logical step. Your, your sound, like between, especially between 91 and 94, your sonic texture would have been the actual place where PE should have landed in terms of what to do next after Apocalypse 91? Like, what are some of the nodes that you didn't do as far as like collaborations?

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Wasn't a lot, like, wasn't a lot, because I just wouldn't even put myself out there like that. You know what I mean? I just made sure I stayed in. I did what, KRS-One?

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  You know what? While we're talking about this, you did a remix for U2 once, and,

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  Numb. It was actually, first song Edge ever, Edge rapped on it.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude, I was gonna say, that, I always knew the album version,

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  He's got my Edge hat on.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, facts. I was gonna say that when I got that 12-inch, I was like, yo, like, now this sounds, this sounds official. Like, their version was more like alt-rock or whatever, they were like switching their style up for that particular album. But, uh, yeah, I was gonna say, that, that was an incredible remix that I felt that should have gotten,

• 1:07:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that one was banging. That was a bang. I liked that one.

• 1:07:03Speaker 02

  Got further into it.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  And he, he kind of rapped on it, you know, so, so, so I made, I made the beat.

• 1:07:08Speaker 02

  And you definitely made it, 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 Il Bill, like all these acts, Planet Asia, Sick Jack, and all these, like, of all the collaborative projects you've done, like, would have been like your favorites as far as your highlights?

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  The Rock record, the Mahkami records I did, Rome Streets, yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  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,

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  You know, the sound's morphing, and even, even when there are drums, they're mixed lower now. And it's funny, when you mix them higher, it just sounds like Boom Bap from the 90s.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  But when you bring the drums down a little bit more and let the music shine, it's what the sound of now, you know what I mean? I've been drumless. I've done Born to Get Busy on the first Cypress album, didn't have no drums. The song with, on the Soul Assassins, We'll Call It Wild,

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  No drums, you know, Scooby Doo with Cypress Hill, no drums. So we tapped into that now, but it wasn't a thing then, but now it's a thing.

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  Is it odd for it not to have that? Because even what, what I'm trying to make now,

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  I'm like, Jesus, like the louder 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

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  era hip-hop, like, how do you feel?

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Is this right up your alley?

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it's right up my alley. Sometimes you got a loop and you try to put drums on it and 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 Cypress, 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 vibe. 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 on 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.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  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, how would you first meet him?

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  I met him because, um, actually our, 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?

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  I got this rap group, two little white kids from Beverly Hills. I said, get the fuck out of here. Okay, don't, I don't want to hit talk show. Get out of here with this shit. And so they called Be Real next, you know, they want to affiliate with Cypress. So Be Real ended up working with them and he executive produced the first album. And got some producers that were down with the management team to produce their first record.

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:35Speaker 03

  So during that, I met Al. And then Al realized during that record, like, oh, Mugs is the sound besides Cypress Hill. So I seen him, he was about fourteen, and I seen in him what I seen in me at that age, like, man, 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 on Hollywood Boulevard and go, we want to make a record. I thought the music was already in the studio for you. I didn'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'd take him on tour with us every place we can go.

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  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, uh, it's just a fucking quantum leap, you know, into, into the future. So all those, all the shit you might have had to deal with, you can just kind of like, just learn from being around the shit.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  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?

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  I 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 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, um, I remember sitting down and listening to about fifty beats I never used and I spent fucking days on them. And I go, how much time that 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 ideas.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Where is the, uh, sort of the pileup? How many would you reckon are in your canon right now as far as? Like, do you have an entire collection of every beat that you've ever made?

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  From the last ten years, yeah. I got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of beats.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  Have you kept the original SB twelve hundred discs from the?

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  Got all those discs still.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:13:07Speaker 03

  You know, and they work.

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  All right, no, that's important. That's important. Creatively now, what still, what still motivates you?

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  I think, um, 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, 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 is the shit. So, you know, I see me now as just being an inspiration to the next generation.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Has there ever been a time period where you thought you might have to be a suit? An executive?

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  Never.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Working at a? I always wonder, 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.

• 1:14:20Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  Could mean the world of difference for at least like five or six quality records to come out. Because I know that you at least have immersed yourself and dipped the toe inside of actual music. Whereas, you know, your average A and R.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Well, Andrew Shaq at Priority actually brought me in to run the A and R department. But then Priority went out of business like two months later. They sold. But that's, I feel the same way about, um, press and, um, what you guys are doing is great because it's actually musicians. What Norrie'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. They didn't know how hard it is to have a relationship.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  Journalists?

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, to go, 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, Meth Man 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 yeah, it's refreshing. Just when I, 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, um, 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.

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

  And then, um, it's funny, soon as I get out of my comfort zone and I get somewhere, I'm like, all the ideas start coming and they just start piling in.

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:15:53Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? And then I just get home and I got the fire again. But I know myself well enough, I go, oh, here, I'm here again. I need to, let me get out of town for a minute, let me go do something else.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  So you have a self-care routine where you, you believe in vacations and time out and?

• 1:16:06Speaker 03

  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, I mastered myself as a man to understand like, like my ebbs and flows. But now I'm not a producer, you know, I'm, I'm more of an artist where I'm going to sit down and make full projects and, um, 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, they don't want to listen. I'm like, cool, all your ideas, all your thinking got 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're done work with me and they actually put the work in,

• 1:16:52Speaker 03

  I see the jump and they come, oh man, I appreciate it. My life changed after I worked with you. You know, and other dudes who just like, nah, this is how I do my shit and this is who I am. Oh, all right, cool then, homie. Yeah, this is the record, we're done. God bless you.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  Anything left on your, your bucket list as far as things that you want to achieve creatively?

• 1:17:10Speaker 03

  Um, I'm doing films now, so this is my second short film.

• 1:17:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:17:13Speaker 03

  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 a 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, um, so Death Valley, I got with Jason Goldwatch and did Death Valley, which actually started inspiring a couple of different people to make films. You know, Al told me, he's like, man, you inspired me to make the film he made last year with, um, 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 then I'll just flip the samples. And other days I just go in and sample.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  And, uh, yeah, man, it's just, shit's got to come out. I just enjoy going in the lab and just making music still.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  What was the advice that you're glad that you didn't take?

• 1:18:07Speaker 03

  Make your shit on the metronome. Your shit's dusty, you need to clean it up.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  You don't quantize sometimes?

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Ah, nice.

• 1:18:15Speaker 03

  You need, your shit's offbeat. It's, it's dusty, um, 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, uh, that's been, I live by that and die by that shit.

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  Who is your longest friendship in this industry? And as far as your journey as DJ Mugs?

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  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? 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, everybody's cool.

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  Who's the one person in your life that keeps you in check?

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  Keeps me in check?

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  I mean, a lot of times I think when you get status, you go into can't tell me nothing territory.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  Just my regular friends, just my regular friends. We clown, you know? If I walk in with some funny ass socks on,

• 1:19:09Speaker 03

  bro, you know, they, they let you have it, you know what I mean? So, you know, just my, my, my homies are just some regular motherfuckers. They don't, they don't make music or nothing. So it's just keeping your core group of homies around all the time.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  All right. I'll close with this. Why do you still do it? Why do you still want to make music? Why, what keeps you going?

• 1:19:30Speaker 03

  You know, I think my biggest fear is waking up one day and just not have an inspiration. Like not having that no more, you know what I mean? And um, so I just appreciate the blessing I was given, you know what I mean? And I would never disrespect this blessing. So I um, actually enjoy it, you know what I mean? And early in my career was 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. 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 uh, like uh, the kid TF I'm working with now, I thought he was one of the best dudes that I like in LA.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  So I was like, I could take, watch when this album's done, you're gonna start touring in Europe, you're gonna start seeing a lot of doors open for you that didn't open, you know? Hence, you know, Rome Streets, same situation, Raz 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 wanna work and do this and put their, put more energy into the project than you, than you'll put, I'm like, yeah, okay. That, that's what I feed off of now.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  I know, you know, people will come up to you and say, wow, this is a classic, this is a classic.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  Oh, it was the movie with Hit Boy, Goldfish. Yeah, Al, when I was at the screening, Al gave me props. He was like, man, we did this because of Mugs, I got inspired by Death Valley.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 1:21:06Speaker 03

  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. Cause there was a minute there where this kinda hip hop was kinda, it was getting less and less, you know what I mean? It was like, it was, it was hanging by a string, you know what I mean? But you know, and, and just, you know, seeing shit like Nas coming back and doing his shit and everything he's doing with Mass Appeal, like that's inspiring, you know? Coming back and bringing all the OGs back and everything. So that's what we gotta 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 um, so I just wanna keep giving back to it and you know.

• 1:21:49Speaker 02

  Well, sir, I thank you for coming on the show, man.

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  Oh, hell yeah, bro, thank you.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  I appreciate your artistry.

• 1:21:53Speaker 03

  Thank you very much, brother.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  And everything you've done.

• 1:21:55Speaker 03

  Appreciate everything.

• 1:21:56Speaker 02

  DJ Mugs on the Questlove Show. Yep, and we will see y'all on the next go around. See y'all later.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

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• 1:22:51Speaker 02

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