A twenty-sixth floor conference room in Sony Music's Madison Avenue mega-skyscraper is not the first place one expects to be overpowered by the scent of marijuana. But when Cypress Hill are involved, it's par for the course. The L.A. crew became hip-hop superstars when their 1993 stoner masterpiece Black Sunday went double platinum, and their latest moves bear special attention.

Last week saw the release of Los Grandes Exitos en Espanol, (The Big Hits in Spanish) for which they re-recorded their vocals in Spanish, over the same tight beats that appear on the original albums (1991's Cypress Hill, 1995's III (Temples of Boom) and 1998's IV). As if a Spanish greatest hits album wasn't enough, they've also got a brand new record in the can. Skull & Bones is due out in March, and, according to rapper B-Real and percussionist Eric Bobo, it contains a new Cypress Hill sound. "We experimented a lot with this record," says Bobo. "A few songs are a heavy rap-metal kind of thing. [Drummer] Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine played on a track."

During our interview, the very stoned B-Real and Bobo graciously answered questions and betrayed none of the manic intensity of their music. Only when B-Real explained that his light-blue shirt adorned with Chinese dynasty-style prints is made by South Pole, a line he reps, and Bobo dryly countered that his bandmate was working as a model, did B-Real make some real noise. "I'm not no fucking model, man!" he spouted, as Bobo broke up in laughter.

"Los Grandes Exitos En Espanol" means "The Big Hits in Spanish." How did the idea for this record come up?

B-REAL: Originally we were gonna put our first album out in Spanish, all Spanish, but we never got around to it, because we were touring a lot. Once we got off the tour, we had to start working on our second album, Black Sunday. Fast forward to now, when we were recording Skull & Bones, we put a stop on making more songs, so we could sit on what we had and check it out. In the meantime we said, "Why don't we do something with the Spanish things we planned. If it sounds good, we'll do the album." We did a few of the songs and they all turned out pretty well, so we decided, okay, time to do this album. We recorded it in the in-between time while making Skull & Bones.

Ricky Martin blasted on the scene at the point where we were making our shit. It ain't the fact that he's the first Latin to glow in the eyes of America, just that he's opened the doors for us to do whatever we want to do now. So instead of being Spanish-speaking artists trying to do English, which is what a lot of them are trying to do, we're trying to do it in reverse.

Since rhymes don't necessarily translate from one language to another, it must have been a pretty complex process.

B-REAL: Especially in Spanish because with a new pattern of words and syllables, it sounds different. The flow is different. We tried to keep it as close as we could to what the original songs were. All we wanted to do was to give the people who are into our music in the Latin countries, who speak nothing but Spanish, an understanding of what these songs really are. Plus, [brother of Cypress Hill rapper Sen Dog] Mellow Man Ace was a big part of translating the songs.

BOBO: We just chose the songs that would translate best. Some songs might not translate the right way, in the right pocket. "I Wanna Get High" was one of the first songs we started doing live in Spanish, just to freak people out.

Any reason you didn't do "I Ain't Going Out?"

B-REAL: It was hard to translate the hook on that one, and we didn't want to do it half-ass. The rhymes were easier to translate, but the hooks are different. "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That" is a slang thing here, but it's hard to translate that sort of slang into Spanish. We didn't want to do our shit an injustice by giving it a translation that wasn't gonna be as good as the English version.

Did you grow up speaking Spanish in L.A.?

B-REAL: I was spoken to in both languages. I sort of spoke Spanish, but I understood more than I could speak. I can speak more fluently now. I can read it and write it.

How did your label react when you went to them with this idea?

B-REAL: They didn't know we were actually doing it. We just recorded it, didn't say nothing about it. Then, "Hey, here, check this out; this is our Spanish album." They said, "What? When did you do this?" "We just finished it while we were recording the other album." They were surprised.

Rapper Fermfn IV Caballero of the Mexican group Control Machete appears on the song "Siempre Peligroso" ["Always Dangerous"]. How did you come to work with him on this project?

B-REAL: We heard of Control Machete way back, through a guy we used to engineer our records, Jason Roberts, and he told us about them and gave us a tape on them. They had some cool shit. Little by little, we kept hearing about them and the hype around them. They're from Monterrey, Mexico. Then we got to know 'em because we happened to be working in the same studio and we decided to work together, but both groups together, not just Fermin. So when it came time to do this record, we wanted to do that shit.

On Buena Vista Social Club, a record by a Cuban group, they give the words in English and Spanish in the CD booklet. Have you thought of doing that?

B-REAL: On our Web site, we got the English lyrics and we're gonna be adding the Spanish lyrics. It's at www.cypressonline.com, and it's in the section called Books of Madness.

Can you give us a preview of Skull & Bones? What should we expect?

BOBO: To me, it's the most different Cypress Hill record. We're using live instruments more. The hip-hop is grimy, very underground. The whole process has been different. The whole band was always making the music right there in the studio.

Is your primary role as a congero?

BOBO: On this I played some other instruments: bass and drums, and onstage I do the Latin percussion. There are also other people who played instruments. A couple of the guys from Fear Factory. We played some tracks straight through, with samples on top or in different spots.

B-REAL: It's a fusion between hip-hop and live instruments. Muggs would come with a drum loop with some sounds, and we would play over it or around it. We have so much material to use, we could put out an EP, or a soundtrack. We're gonna take advantage of it, 'cause we put a lot of time in the studio and we like everything that we did. We don't kid ourselves; if there's something that's just okay, we don't use it. We put it away.

BOBO: One of the best decisions that we made was to not go on tour and to complete the records. A lot of things we did probably wouldn't have been done had we gone on tour this summer. It's been about five years since we were home for the summer. Now we have something that goes beyond what we even imagined.

B-REAL: Our hip-hop stuff is straightforward, underground hip-hop -- with concepts, we don't just write about bullshit, you know. The other stuff iship-hop and metal fusion, with heavy guitars, bass and live drums. We wanted to take our live show to a different place, because we've done just about everything you can do as a hip-hop group. We want to be a hip-hop group that keeps doing different things.

RODD MCLEOD
(December 17, 1999)