Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from Los Angeles, California. Cypress Hill was the first Latino group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums. The band was originally called DVX, but the name was changed after Mellow Man Ace left in 1988. Over the course of its history, Cypress Hill has sold more than 17 million albums worldwide, including more than 11 million records in the U.S. alone.

Their first album, which was self-titled, was released in August 1991. Its single was "Phuncky Feel One," but it was the B-side "How I Could Just Kill A Man" (formerly "Trigga Happy Nigga"[citation needed]) that attracted more airplay on urban radio and college radio. Based on the success of the single and other tracks such as bilingual track "Latin Lingo" and X-rated Spanish track "Tres Equis", the album sold two million copies in the US alone. Subsequently, DJ Muggs produced House of Pain's first album, then worked on other projects like Funkdoobiest. The band made their first appearance at Lollapalooza on the side stage in 1992.

Black Sunday, the group's second album, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in 1993, recording the highest Soundscan for a rap group up until that time. Also with their debut still on the charts they became the first rap artists to have 2 albums in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 at the same time. With "Insane in the Brain" becoming a crossover hit, the album went triple platinum in the U.S. and sold about 3.25 million copies.

Cypress Hill was banned from Saturday Night Live after Muggs smoked cannabis on-air and the band trashed their instruments while playing their second single "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That". The band headlined the "Soul Assassins" tour with House of Pain and Funkdoobiest as support, then performed on a college tour with Rage Against the Machine and Seven Year Bitch. In 1993, Cypress Hill also had two tracks on the Judgment Night soundtrack, teamed up with Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth.

The band played at the 1994 Woodstock Festival introducing their new member Eric Bobo, formerly a percussionist with the Beastie Boys. Bobo is the son of salsa musician Willie Bobo. Rolling Stone magazine named the band as the best rap group in their music awards voted by critics and readers. Cypress Hill played at Lollapalooza for two successive years, topping the bill in 1995. They appeared on the The Simpsons episode "Homerpalooza". Prior to Bobo joining the crew, Panchito "ponch" Gomez also sat in as a percussionist when not acting.

Soon after “No Rest for the Wicked” was released Ice Cube recorded the album Bow Down with his partners WC and Mack 10 of Westside Connection. The album contains two diss tracks aimed at Cypress Hill: “King of the Hill” and “Cross em out and put a K”. “King of the Hill” is a direct response to “No Rest for the Wicked”.

In 1997 B-Real of Cypress Hill and Ice Cube were invited to a late night talk show in order to reconcile their differences for the benefit of the hip hop community, and the feud thus ended. Cube and B-Real would work together later that year as guest features on the track "Men of Steel" for the soundtrack of Shaquille O'Neal's film Steel. B-Real and Cube even featured as guests in Warren G's double "Get U Down" which also featured Snoop Dogg.

Having fulfilled their contractual obligations with Sony Music, Cypress Hill will release an as-yet untitled album through a different record label in 2008.

Recently, it was announced that Cypress Hill will be members of the Kannabis Kartel along with the Kottonmouth Kings and Potluck. Their album will be released on Suburban Noize Records.

On July 25, 2008, Cypress Hill performd at a benefit concert at the House of Blues Chicago where a majority of the proceeds went to the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness.