Recorded at Image Recording, Los Angeles, California.

Personnel: B Real (vocals).

Audio Mixers: Joe Nicolo; Muggs.

Recording information: Image Recording, Los Angeles, CA; Studio 4 Recording, Philadelphia, PA.

Photographer: Michael Paul Miller.

Arranger: Muggs.

It's hard enough to transform an entire musical genre -- Cypress Hill's eponymous debut album revolutionized hip-hop in several respects. Although they weren't the first Latino rappers, nor the first to mix Spanish and English, they were the first to achieve a substantial following, thanks to their highly distinctive sound. Along with Beastie Boys and Public Enemy, Cypress Hill were also one of the first rap groups to bridge the gap with fans of both hard rock and alternative rock. And, most importantly, they created a sonic blueprint that would become one of the most widely copied in hip-hop. In keeping with their promarijuana stance, Cypress Hill intentionally crafted their music to sound stoned -- lots of slow, lazy beats, fat bass, weird noises, and creepily distant-sounding samples. The surreal lyrical narratives were almost exclusively spun by B Real in a nasal, singsong, instantly recognizable delivery that only added to the music's hazy, evocative atmosphere; as a frontman, he could be funny, frightening, or just plain bizarre (again, kind of like the experience of being stoned). Whether he's taunting cops or singing nursery rhyme-like choruses about blasting holes in people with shotguns, B Real's blunted-gangsta posture is nearly always underpinned by a cartoonish sense of humor. It's never clear how serious the threats are, but that actually makes them all the more menacing. The sound and style of Cypress Hill was hugely influential, particularly on Dr. Dre's boundary-shattering 1992 blockbuster The Chronic; yet despite its legions of imitators, Cypress Hill still sounds fresh and original today, simply because few hip-hop artists can put its sound across with such force of personality or imagination. ~ Steve Huey

Latinos have been flexing their influence within hip-hop culture at least since the late '70s, when deejays like Charlie Chase and b-boy crews like the Rockwell Association and the infamous Rocksteady Crew made their presence felt at block parties and battles in the Bronx and uptown Manhattan. Throughout the '80s, Spanglish rappers like Kid Frost and (Sen-Dog's older brother) Mellow Man Ace saw some commercial success. But it wasn't until 1991 that a crew brought the Spanish language and sensibility into a hip-hop context at the level where it not only reached mainstream audiences, but also transcended ethnic lines within the inner city. Cypress Hill is that crew.

Their production style (crafted by DJ Muggs, a transplant to LA from the east coast), takes lessons from Prince Paul and the Bomb Squad, but tempered with a distinctly west coast feel reminiscent of the Los Angelino funk of War and Carlos Santana. Vocally, B Real and Sen-Dog achieve an off-kilter balance not unlike the counterpoint between Chuck D's boom and Flavor Flav's singsong interjections. Similarly, their lyrical content negotiates a truce between the urgency of NWA and the playful taunts of the Beastie Boys, interlaced with Spanish vocabulary.