For our cover story this month we caught up with B-Real, from the ground-breaking hip hop group, Cypress Hill. Legendary for his pioneering music and being an ambassador and activist for the use and legalization for cannabis, we delve into the iconic sound of Cypress Hill; his new solo album ‘Tell You Somethin,’ produced with Scott Storch; the magic behind his cult hit ‘Dr. Greenthumb;’ the history of Insane OG and creating and expanding his industry-leading Dr. Greenthumb's Cannabis Dispensaries; creating Phuncky Feel Tips; his G Pen and Stündenglass Gravity Hookah collabs; cannabis and culinary; working out on the road and more!
ATHLEISURE MAG: Looking back on all the times we listened to Cypress Hill, and it’s amazing to think, we’ve had all these different emotions – happy, sad, parties, chilling, raging it’s just crazy – how is it to produce music to hit all those different vibes?
B-REAL: I mean, it’s pretty natural cuz we were pretty much just going by what we were feeling and we were experiencing. So there were times we were joyful, happy, clowning around like young men and stuff like that. Other times we were frustrated, angry - so I think we captured all those type of emotions and being that we’re stoners we also caught that laid back stoner vibe, so I think it was really organic as we were being who we were and we just happened to capture the vibe of regular kids growing up in Los Angeles, and sort of being the bullhorn for these different vibes and situations and scenarios that we were living through that others were living the same thing and could relate to. So I think that’s why its had an impact the way that it did and everybody had some sort of feeling for we were doing and I think that was the connection that we touched on those connections that anyone has been through.
AM: So you’re going on tour with all of these festivals, how is it performing live in these post Covid times?
B: It’s interesting, different because of the protocols and stuff like that. You’ve got to be safe and responsible and also accountable. And at the same time, it’s great, you’re back in front of a crowd and you’re getting a connection, getting a reaction from the music and the energy and all of that stuff and people have so much of that energy built up from the last 2½ years and they try to find any way to letting it go and blowing off some of that steam, so I think that this was helpful toward people trying to get that. At the same being an honest person that gives a shit about people, it’s also kind of scary because we’re going to some of these places where we don’t know what the venue policy is and how protected are the people, that is the one thing that concerns me. But in terms of getting out there and playing in front of people, and seeing that happiness, that crazy unbridled energy – it’s definitely a great feeling.
AM: So you have this new solo album ‘Tell You Somethin,’ produced by Scott Storch, with great featured artists, like Ty Dolla $ign, Rick Ross, Krayzie Bone, Berner and more, what went into the album and what made the sound and vibes about it?
B: Well you know originally I wasn’t planning to do a solo album. I had so much on my plate with my projects with Berner, because him and I are constantly putting out albums together; Cypress Hill obviously ‘cause we’re working on our next album - our last album in fact; and I also had Prophets of Rage going; as well as the group that I have with Xzibit and the other cat named Demrick named the Serial Killers. So I just had so much on my plate, I didn’t think that trying to fit in another project was going to be conducive to my schedule and what not. But we were doing one of my Smokebox interviews, it’s an interview in a CadIllac, in one of my low rider cars, and us smoking out and boxing out the car, just having the car, just having a conversation, not necessarily an interview. But Scott Storch was down at my studio for this - and as many artists do - we were like ‘oh we should do something.’ And we’ve known each other a long time, and our lineage dates back to Philly, way back when he was an intern at Ruffhouse Music which was the label which we were first signed to. So we go way back, and we talked about it. When artists do that sometimes you know they have full intention of working together, and other times they’re full of shit! And Scott was not full of shit, he hit me up and said ‘hey man why don’t you come down and lets vibe out,’ and all of the sessions that we had were vibe outs. He would never have one beat ready, like a folder, that’s how it is these days, producers will give you folders with beats and then you pick’em. With Scott and I, I went to his house, everyday we would have a session and we vibed out, smoked out, and thought OK if we were here what would the vibe be like and he would sort of tinker with stuff, and then we would get ideas from that and then we would just build each song based on the vibe and the idea and what not. So it was really organic the way it came out man - every song was written and produced from scratch. And I haven’t had a chance to work on an album exactly like that in a long time. You know the last Cypress Hill album ‘Elephants On Acid’ was sort of like that. We’ve always worked like that, like never really worked like take these beats and go from that, a couple times we might have done that, but primarily our vibe is let’s go to the studio and create from scratch and see what the vibe is and so it was refreshing to get back to that sort of thing in a world of folder transfers and file transfers, and shit like that. You know it just felt good to be in the studio and being produced by the producer. It's a very different sound for me in terms what people are used to hearing me on as it relates to hard core hip hop with Cypress Hill and Serial Killers and stuff like that. The stuff I do with Berner is close to what I’ve done with Scott, but this is a venture out of my own. So, we felt really good about it. It took a while to put this album out because I have so much shit going on, but I was very, very excited to put it out and glad when it finally came out, I thought it never would and shit it took so long.
AM: Yeah sometimes it feels like life goes so fast, and sometimes it’s like paint drying right?
B: Yeah, because when we were working on this album I had all this other stuff scheduled out, and it pretty much had to wait before I knocked all of that schedule down, before I could actually put it out there. I don’t like to shortchange or shortcut anything I’m working on so I didn’t want to bring something in the middle and cut that project in half. I’ve done that and it's sad when you’ve got a good project going on and you cut it cuz you’ve got to rush something else out because you have a fucking timeline. So I just threw that out the window, and I’m going to finsh all of my obligations, and then put this out so I can give the particular attention I can give it for this particular piece. So I did that and right now I’ve had these Cypress Hill shows, so I haven’t had time to do my own shows, but I know that will come over time, and as the album is building some momentum and the songs are building momentum, when it’s the right time, I’ll go out and do some shows and what not.
AM: So you had some great collabs with it and around 4/20 this year. You gave out a download to Mother Mary, and then did some NFTs around it. How is it to be in the intersection between music, cannabis and technology?
B: Well it’s cool. You know the position that we’re in, in terms of all 3 of those platforms. We're just trying to stay ahead and keep pace with what we want to do, in terms of our growth in the cannabis industry, and maintain our position in the music industry, and forge forward in technology cuz that’s where it’s all going. Technology has a lot to do with both worlds right now. And you know we've got a pretty fucking cool and efficient team so we’ve been managing to stay ahead.
AM: Back in ‘91 you dropped ‘Stoned Is The Way of the Walk,’ on your debut album Cypress Hill – had never heard something like that before – and then Black Sunday with ‘Hits From The Bong, ‘Legalize it,’ ‘I Want to Get High..’ what was the process in putting out those benefits to cannabis in the liner notes and starting to champion use and legalization of cannabis from all the way back then?
B: Well you know on our first album we were putting out our vibe: this is who we are, this is what we believe in, and we believed strongly in cannabis legalization and all that stuff so the first album was sort of the set up with ‘Stoned Is The Way of the Walk’ and ‘Light Another.’ And as we start gaining momentum groups like NORML started getting wind of who we are and offered us spokeswork and being ambassadors to the movement, and that led to meeting up with High Times and doing the High Times cover and creating a long lasting friendship with my man Steve Bloom, and getting information, and eventually we would meet Jack Herer, who opened our eyes to everything, and because of the things we learned from him, and him being our mentor in the cannabis world, we took information from his book ‘Emperor Wears No Clothes,’ and applied some of that information in our liner notes on that album. So he was a big influence on us and his knowledge was basically what carried us trough and took us to the next steps of being advocates and activists. So we were much more educated about what we were talking about and what we were trying to accomplish in terms of turning people on to it. So we owe a whole lot to Jack Herer, yeah, so it was basically his knowledge that inspired us to put that sort of information on the Black Sunday album.
AM: So on the 4th album you dropped ‘Dr. Greenthumb’ and it became a huge underground concert anthem with your community. What was it like to go in that morning to write the lyrics so quickly, and from an entrepreneurship lesson what it means to stay true to your vision when partners or labels might try to steer that off course?
B: Well that song was destiny when I look at it now. You know at the time I thought well this is a great beat and some things just.. so I had written a sketch for a radio show that we were doing previously to making that album. Bobo and myself were working at 92.3 The Beat, and we wrote this sketch, and it was basically an infomercial type sketch which obviously makes the album, we eventually make that the intro for the song. But when I got to the studio and I heard that beat. Boom the theme Dr. Greenthumb just hit me and I started writing right away, I think it was like 10 in the morning I got to the studio. and Muggs knew I that was going to the love that beat, so he left the reels up and gave the engineer instruction to play me that song immediately when I walked in. So I started working on it before anyone got there, I was probably done writing it in 45min and done dropping it in 1 hour 30 min, or something like 1 hour 15min. And I remember specifically Sony hearing that and thinking it was great, but they wanted me to change the lyrics and make it not about weed and make it more like ‘Insane in the Brain.’ And I said, no we already got an Insane In The Brain, this song is what it is and we’re not going to change it. And they were like ‘alright, well I don’t think we’re going to get much radio on it, it’s a great song, but radio still isn’t playing weed songs.’ And I said well, you know I guess that is just a chance we’ll have to take. And the record company didn’t know the song was going to be a cult anthem or one of those underground anthems, they had no clue and thought it would be just a waste of a song. And it became one of our biggest singles in Europe, and then it trickled down here to the States. It never really caught on the radio, but when we played this song live, it would give the same energy off as an Insane In The Brain. Like people would just go nuts for it. It became one of our main anthems. And fast forward to now, California is now a medical state, now I that thought would be a cool brand name for me to come into the cannabis market. Which was my intention all along. And I thought to myself if Cypress isn’t going to come into it right now, then I’ll come into it as Dr. Greenthumb, and because of the music and the familiarlity of our fans as cannabis users, it was sort of a no brainer. It sort of took us a while to get momentum, because we’ve always been in cultivation, and the cannabis stuff, and but now we had brand to put what we were producing behind and that’s where it all started from - that song, bringing it into the cannabis industry, and making it my brand.
AM: You’re dropping Dr. Greenthumb dispensaries all over California, tell us about the team behind it, the mouth watering flavors, and especially the journey behind the potent and tasty Insane OG?
B: I think our team’s been together since ‘94-95. My partner Kenji Fujishima and I, we sort of started off together in the cannabis lane, learning how to grow and stuff like that. Me being on the road all the time, I couldn’t put as much time into the grow out as he did. So he became our master cultivator. Now for a couple years we sort of separated, and I started doing Jet Fuel with another partner, but that eventually went away as we had creative differences of where I thought the brand needed to go and things like that. They went and did their own thing. And Kenji and I fortunately had been partners in BREAL TV forever, since we started the platform, with livestreaming and doing some of the first podcasts before they were called podcasts. Kenji and I have had a long history. So when we both were free from obligations we had had with other people, we decided let’s partner back up, make the Greenthumb brand bigger, and call our strain brand Insane as a tribute to Cypress Hill and what not. So we’ve been together cultivating probably 25 years or so and we were maybe one of the first 6-7 guys in Southern California that had the OG Kush cut, which was to become one of the biggest strains in Southern California, and maybe even the world for a time, because it was so sought out and highly touted as the best cannabis in the world, up until maybe 10 years ago where all the exotic flavor blasts started happening, OG was the premier flower, and we were one of the ones that had it, and Kenji being one of the best at it, he produced some of the best Kush in Southern California for a long time, so our reputations as cultivators and ambassadors were constantly on the rise. So we’ve just been putting it together, piecing our team together little by little, getting the right guys that can represent, our company, our brand, our strains. So far we’ve accomplished Phase 1, and we’re rolling up to Phase 2.
AM: It’s a Big Phase 1! Congrats on everything. How many dispensaries do you have now in Californina?
B: Right now we have 7, we just opened in San Diego and we’re looking at a few other spots now. But the main objective is that after we get the spots that we feel are most important here in California, the next step is getting into the other cannabis friendly states, like Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma - everywhere that we can possibly plant a flag, we feel we’re going to do great. So locking down California is Phase 1, Phase 2 is now going into the different states that we can plant that flag and give that California experience.
AM: New York is stubbornly turning around. East Coast definitely needs some West Coast Love. Eventually we’ll be there..
B: Yeah I mean frankly it surprises me, you know, being New York has been in the forefront of so many things, in terms of entertainment, fashion, culinary - mostly everything - and for it to be one of the last on the cannabis train, that’s just crazy, especially when you think about it that High Times was based out of NY, and they do a lot of cannabis events, Central Park even, I remember doing those small clubs at Wetlands and stuff like that, so it’s a trip that NY is so far behind, when you’d think they’re so progressive they’d be in front of it. Even in California, to have Colorado legalize before us, that was crazy. But it all eventually comes around, because I think you know, the powers that be that run the state see the revenue stream that cannabis creates, and they’re waiting to see how the other states do, and how they work it and if it’s successful, and how they can implement it without upsetting their conservative voters or religious voters.
AM: Tell us about the Phuncky Feel Tips, how long did it take from coming up with it to putting it out there.
B: Phuncky Feel Tips, I created maybe 3-4 years before they actually came out. I was doing a deal with Roor.de for a licensing deal to create two lines of glass with Cypress Hill, one being an expensive collection line and the other one being a more affordable line. And as we’re doing that, I happened to be in Amsterdam and we were on tour, and were rolling in front our hotel, or maybe Greenhouse, I can’t exactly remember that part.. but we were rolling up, and I love smoking joints with the tip, but those paper tips were killing me, for me I looked at them in frustration, and I said why the fuck hasn’t anyone ever made any glass tips for joints or blunts. And I thought OK when I get home I’m going to call my glassblower friends that I know and make prototypes and try to put these out. Being that I was already doing a deal with Roor, I presented to them as we’re already doing this bong deal. And at first - they were reluctant as never doing something like that or if people would buy them. I said I didn’t care if people would buy them, I want to do them, and I know that people will buy them, and I knew from my experience once we made my first prototype, because I made a prototype from a different glassblower, and then I presented it. So I had at least a few weeks of R&D with it, and I was like I need to make more prototypes, because I’m not smoking another joint without one of these, and I knew if that happened to me then it was going to happen to others. So I had the prototypes made and I sent them to him in Germany. They made their prototypes, which were better than the ones I had made, and we agreed those were going to be the ones that went to market. And we put them out and it was slow going at first. It was a new product, and people were like what the fuck were these. How do you use them, how do you roll with them, how do you stick your joint in them? And people didn’t get you put them in the joint, not in that you put the joint in the tips. But once they caught! And I mean they went – you know! And now there is a collector community that collects all our custom color coordinated tips like baseball cards - I never thought that would be happening. I thought we’d sell some tips and people would have a different smoking experience, but they went beyond that. And that was great. And now to see people that have knocked off the product, and see them everywhere now, even though it’s kind of shitty, that people knocked our idea off and put it in their products. It goes to show you we’re ahead of the game. And we still make these tips and we’re ahead of everyone at that. It shows you my theory that once people smoke with a smoking tip they weren’t going to go back. Now these days people are spoiled.. your average smoker that isn’t necessary educated about the tips, they’ll smoke those paper tips because that’s all they know - but once they get a hold of a Phuncky Feel Tip it’s over! I remember when it first started catching, there were certain glassblowers like ‘oh man, you didn’t create that, it’s been in the market forever.’ And I was like ‘OK find one, show me one, I issue a challenge to any of you motherfuckers, that is not wood, that’s not plastic that predates my tip..' And not one of them could do it, and they were just mad because someone that didn’t blow glass created something they could’ve easily done. And then after the fact that I’ve brought it out, you’d have all these guys went and made some tips because of me, because some were glassblowers and they could do that, but I've never gone after them, whatever they do, people are going to put it on my back anyway and will say that’s B-Real's idea, that’s the Phuncky Feel tip, and I never took too much offense to it, I just say I’ve had a great idea, here it is!
AM: Speaking of glass we saw the Dr. Greenthumb’s x Stündenglass Gravity Hookah on your IG because we check it out. It looks so elegant and smooth. Tell us about that partnership and what it’s like to use that.
B: Oh man, Seth Rogan was the first guy that they filmed with it and he blew it up and I think that they realized they had something there. And I think their idea was to get it in the hands of real celebrities that smoke weed and have influence. And I think they were working with G Pen, and I was working with G Pen on some of our Dr. Greenthumb's X G Pen collaborative products, like the Dash and the Connect and the Roam and while we were talking about that they were like what about doing a collaboration with Stünden. And I was ‘like yeah sure, send me over a sample of the product and let us fuck with it, and see.’ And if I like ‘I’m definitely down, but if I don’t like it I’m not gonna do it because I’m not going to put my name on shit that I would not use.’ So they send it over, and we immediately start fucking with it, but we’re not fucking it with flower, because you know I stopped hitting glass bongs a long time ago, just because I feel like at some point the hit gets stale, and I don’t want a stale hit ever, so I stick to smoking the joints. So what we did was we took one the connects that we have and we adapted it on to the Stünden because they had an adapter for that. We were using the Stünden for concentrate as opposed to flower, it was so awesome, that actually became part of our Dr. Greenthumb podcast where there’s a portion of the show, it was so awesome, and actually became part of our Dr. Greenthumb podcast where there’s a portion of the show where the last half hour where we take questions and comments and shoutouts from the fans, and a lot times they’ll be like we want 3 flips from B-Real, meaning they want me to hit that Stündenglass and take 3 hits of the glass and that became a thing, and when we started highlighting that type of shit on our podcast people started running to our dispensaries to buy those Stündenglass, we could not keep them in fucking stock. People use it with flower, I’ve seen Wiz Khalifa use it with the flower, but for us we use it for the concentrate, and it fucking works amazing. If anybody was going to do it, I would recommend to do it with the concentrate, do it with the connect, and it’s lovely. Bobo, he hit the first record with them, he hit 10 flips. One of our other guys did 15 flips and one of our other co-hosts did 20 flips and stuff like that. It’s devastating, but it’s a cool experience, people love that shit and they love seeing people testing their metal trying to do like 10-20 flips. I’m good at 3.
AM: Yeah 3 looks like a good start, definitely!
B: 3 is a good start..
AM: We cover a lot in food, from clean eating and meal prep, to fine dining and splurges. We loved the show Bong Appétit on Viceland that you hosted in ‘19, it was groundbreaking. What’s your take of cooking with cannabis, and edibles in general.
B: I think it's awesome. Because it gives people that may be a little intimidated by smoking it, a chance to have the experience through culinary. A lot of the people that aren’t educated in the cannabis world, that maybe are curious, it was the perfect show for them as they can find ways to infuse. You can infuse any meal, you can infuse any dessert, any app, and that show was sort of like a guideline to doing that. Since then there have been like 3 other shows that have knocked that show off that are doing relatively the same thing. But I think shows like that is important, whether it’s us doing it, whether its Kelis doing it, or whoever else - it’s educating people, and showing people a different way. Because not everybody wants to smoke, it's kind of loud when you're smoking joints or blunts or bongs, Its loud, bongs. Its loud, and some people are more lowkey than that and so you have a significant amount of people would rather do edibles and this is one way they can create their own edibles if they have any culinary skills, or at least to know they can find it somewhere, that there are meal prep places that can infuse food whether its CBD full spectrum or just THC. So I think shows like that are important, the lifetime that they last on the air that’s subjective. I think we got caught up with Vice while they were in a transitional period. I think that they needed more room for their news platform and what not. So Bong Appetit didn’t get brought back, but it was great while it lasted. I had fun with Vanessa and Miguel, they’re great people. Vanessa sometimes comes and co-hosts on Dr. Greenthumb podcasts and all that stuff, so we still stay in contact. And we’re constantly talking about maybe creating another show somewhere down the line, but more I think dinner party conversational style rather than competitive cooking and stuff like that. That was fun to see people doing that. but I think there is a bit of conversation to be had and a little bit more education to be spilled out there if you would do a dinner party style, but we’re working on it..
AM: In the age of Covid and smoking, and vaping, it’s more important than ever to elevate your workout and wellness game, what kinds of things are you doing to workout - are you hitting the gym, doing stuff at home, or doing more adventure fitness outside?
B: That’s a part of my culture, it’s a part of me. I’ve made that to be part of my daily ritual. Like I pray everyday, I work out. Like I smoke everyday, I workout. Because realistically doing what we do in terms of performances, it's always a high energy show and we’re always trying to give 110%. And so you got to stay in shape for that. And just trying to stay in shape for ourselves, for our families, trying to be as healthy as possible - maintaining a proper diet and workout schedule and stuff like that to keep healthy and fit, and to put the right fuel in our system - and the fact of smoking cannabis the way we do, is also therapeutic and healing benefit from that. So you know, I think that’s one of the reasons we’re still able to do it on the level we do, performing at a festival, a small club or an arena, of whatever - we're always ready for it. Because we always maintain to keep busy, to keep active. Now in our fucking 50s, we’re watching what we put in our bodies, sure we still have a good time and splurge now and then. But we’ve always been guys in terms of Cypress Hill that were into sports and competing, like we’d play a lot basketball and football back in the day. Sen Dog and Muggs played a lot of baseball; Muggs and I trained in martial arts and boxing, so we’re constantly finding ways to keep busy, training and keep ourself active – besides from performing on the stage because that’s a workout itself – but we workout to do that just like an athlete works out to play their perspective sport. So we feel like that is really important. And what I’m glad to see is a lot of golden era rappers, start to get in the gym, take care of themselves, investing the time and energy and putting it back in their bodies. I see Method Man’s fucking workout grind, crazy. Jim Jones always had a crazy workout grind. Action Bronson, I gotta tip my hat to my bro, because he’s working his ass off these days. It’s great to see guys like that taking care of themselves like that man. And us, at Cypress Hill, we’ve always maintained to do that, it’s part of our culture, it’s who we are. When we are on the road, we’ll all meet up at the gym and get our pre-show workout or day-off workout, and then back on the grind. We don’t stop, it’s important to us. We wanna be fit, we don’t want to be those dudes that are huffing and puffing and can’t complete the show, you know!
AM: It’s been real fun to catch up today! Is there any news or teasers on the upcoming Cypress Hill album?
B: Yeah, we’ll be popping that off in March of next year. We have one of the singles from that album coming out pretty soon. We released ‘Champion Sound’ early for the MLB video game, but there’s another one coming called ‘Open Your Mind,’ and we look forward to people hearing that, and I believe we are going to make the video to that pretty soon cause its going to be the lead single and what not. There's much more music ahead of me, I have so much more coming out in the next year and a half it’s crazy, but you know it’s all paced.
AM: Well that’s great – Congrats again on everything! The entrepreneurship lessons for people that you give - of just being yourself, doing something different, working in a big market, doing what you love - those are huge lessons for everybody!
B: Yeah I mean the one thing that anyone should take away from this is you get what you put into it. If you go halfway, all you’re going to do is go halfway. If you put it all in, and go all in, and dedicate yourself to it, you can get wherever you want to go! Obviously, you’ve got to have talent, and a little bit of luck, and a whole lot of faith, that you will do it - but you have to put the work behind it, and when it’s the time, you meet the right people, the doors open up, you go through that door, and it’s all about what you do from there. You know you can take yourself as far as you want to go. So I would just say to anyone, believe in yourself, believe in what you’re trying to do, and go at it 110%!”
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PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | Front Cover, PG 18, 21, 30/Insane OG BTS | PG 16, 22, 33 + Back Cover Eitan Miskevich | PG 24 G Pen | PG 27 Pedro Garcia | PG 28 Kenji Fujishima | PG 30 Insane Cookies/Justin Mcivor |
Read the SEP ISSUE #69 of Athleisure Mag and see Bringing the Smoke with B-Real in mag.
