Cypress Hill: Live At The Fillmore : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Although Cypress Hill's 1991 debut coincided with the birth of gangsta rap, there was always something -- the skull logos, the ganja and, more recently, a live guitar, bass and drums -- that made them a rock band. Releasing a live album recorded in a venue associated more with the Grateful Dead than with N.W.A would seem to confirm this. B-Real, Sen Dog, Bobo and DJ Muggs are in top form here, dueling rhymes and backing tracks in doo-wop-funk classics like "How I Could Just Kill a Man," "Hand on the Pump" and "Insane in the Brain." The howling interaction between the Cypress crew and their inebriated fans on "A to the K" and "Stoned Is the Way of the Walk" somehow conflates the feel of South Central and Woodstock. More than just a static greatest-hits retake, Live at the Fillmore is laced with insistent metal riffing that enhances Cypress Hill's midcareer material, and B-Real's mastering of Skull and Bones' rock-superstar ethos makes him a dark-horse candidate for new frontman of Rage Against the Machine. (RS 860)

ED MORALES