Interview with B-Real
By David Friedman
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1

How is "Smoke N Mirrors" different in sound and style from a Cypress Hill album — other than that obviously it isn’t produced by DJ Muggs?
That’s a big part of it right there. And the fact that I don’t have Sen and Bobo as far as creatively. Muggs has a certain sound and a certain sound for Cypress Hill. So being that I reached out to other producers that had a different sound than what Muggs produces and me taking the reigns and producing a couple of the things myself, I figured right then and there that would be a big difference as far as the sound goes and as far as the vibe and the direction of it. Now it’s all on my back. And I don’t have my brothers there to help me guide this thing. It’s pretty much all on me. My team that I have is my Audio Hustlaz production team. And conceptual-wise, there’s a lot of songs that I did that I normally wouldn’t do with Cypress. The other thing is we didn’t lean so much on the marijuana songs and stuff like that. We left that pretty much to Cypress Hill because it’s very much a Cypress Hill thing. I wanted it to be distinctively different and independent of what Cypress Hill is. I realized that I’m a part of Cypress Hill, so some of the stuff is gonna bleed over. There is marijuana references here and there and there is one song, but I kept that to a minimum purposefully so that it would stand out on its own and not be considered an extension of Cypress.
Out of the producers who worked on "Smoke N Mirrors," which ones are part of the Audio Hustlaz team?
My partner J. Turner, who produced three or four songs for the record, myself and Salaam Wreck, who is brothers with Fredwreck. Pretty much, so far, that’s our team. There are people who are down with us like Scoop Deville. We consider him part of our clique. But his production company is a whole different thing. We’re building our production team slowly but surely.
How would you describe the production style of the Audio Hustlaz team?
The three of us have really different types of styles of production. Salaam Wreck, it’s more of a new type of sound. And I usually sample more shit and chop up stuff. J, he does a combination of both. I mean, it all ties together really well. But we all have three different styles. So as far as Audio Hustlaz style goes, we really couldn’t be pinned down to one particular style. It’s all hip-hop. It’s just different types of musical beds and stuff like that. All our beats sound distinctively different from one another’s. And I think that’s good because it gives us room to make tracks for fuckin anybody. Whoever wants the traditional hip-hop, we’ve got that. And whoever wants the newer type of sound where it’s mostly a non-sample type of music bed, we’ve got that too. We’ve got pretty much everything that somebody could ask for as far as production goes because the three of us have our little things that we specialize in and we all work together on certain tracks. So it’s traditionally hip-hop, but we have that bridge between the old-school and new-school style of shit.
You produced one track called "Fire" that features Damian Marley and another track, "Dr. Hyphenstein," featuring Snoop Dogg. What was it like producing tracks for each of them individually?
Well, it came by chance. I didn’t plan it that way. But when I did the tracks, I ran into Damian at a Snoop Dogg show and said, ‘Wow, this is meant to happen.’ I didn’t plan for him to be on it, but when I saw him I thought, ‘Wow, maybe I should ask him to be on this fuckin song because he would be perfect on this song.’ I asked him and he said to send him the track. He sent it back and it was fuckin amazing what he did over it. It was like, ‘Wow, this fuckin shit is pretty bangin.’ And then with Snoop, we had been working together for a long time. And when I did that track, I could just hear his voice over it. It seemed like a Snoop Dogg track. I originally made it to give it to him, but his record was already done. So I thought, ‘Maybe I should just use this and call him and have him get on it with us.’ It ended up working that way.
People think of you first as a rapper, not a producer because of Cypress Hill. How did you initially get into production?
I was always in the background, just intrigued with what Muggs was doing and other producers I had met. Little by little, I started learning things from them indirectly. I’d say the guys that helped me out the most as far as my production goes were my boy J. Turner, my boy Fredwreck, Salaam’s brother. And from there, I just took what they showed me and developed my own type of style the way I chop and the way I put things together.
You waited many years before stepping into the production side of things. Why now?
It’s something I’d always wanted to do, but I just never had time to do it because our work schedule with Cypress was so heavy and so hectic that I never had a chance to do a solo record or produce beats or anything like that. I was either writing, recording or on the road. Those were the three things that kept me away from initially doing beats when I was pretty much bitten by the bug to do it. The first album that I actually worked on as far as production went was the first Psycho Realm record. And I did a lot of the co-production mainly. I took what I learned from watching Muggs and brought it to that project. And Sick Jacken, at the time, was doing a lot of the production with that. So we got together and put our heads together and made that record. We tried to make that as bumpin and as creative as possible. After that, I stopped for a long time because, like I said, the Cypress Hill work schedule was really crazy so it didn’t allow me time to do anything else for a while. After our last Cypress Hill record with Sony to fulfill our deal, I had a shitload of time to get back and start making beats again, so it pretty much started like that. I’ve been doing beats for about six, seven years now. It’s just I never really put anything out because I never really had the time to do it.
What were the first songs that you really handled production on?
The first couple things I did put out in the last year or so were I did a song on Proof’s album before he passed away that featured Method Man and myself on it. I did this one joint for Kottonmouth Kings. And previous to that, I did a song for one of the wrestlers named Taz when he was wrestling for the WWE — just little things here and there, nothing major and stuff like that. So it was only natural that I made some beats for myself on my record. I didn’t plan to, but it’s just the way that it turned out.
Cypress Hill is working on a new album, tentatively titled "Smoke," and you’re still doing shows. Is the work schedule less hectic just because you’re off of Sony now?
Definitely. We didn’t have a deadline. With us fulfilling our deal, there was no time restraint like, ‘We need a Cypress Hill record by this time.’ We had time where we could do our solo projects and knock out all the things that we wanted to do before we got back in and started to do the new Cypress record. Muggs had a lot on his plate, I wanted to produce and find other acts and do a solo record, and Sen Dog had a few things that he had to work on, as well as Bobo. We just took advantage of the time we had to make it all happen. Fortunately, my dream of putting a solo record out with my production on it is finally gonna be realized. Whether it’s successful or not remains to be seen. I have no expectations whatsoever. I just want to put out good music and hopefully people will find something to relate to in it.
Do you have plans to tour to promote "Smoke N Mirrors?"
Definitely. I don’t know exactly how much touring, but we’re definitely gonna put in some road work on it because that’s pretty much how you build a following with your music. You’ve gotta get on the road and win people over. That’s what we did with Cypress. That’s what a lot of people did when they didn’t have radio or video play. I’m gonna follow that same line.
Because you have a lot of guests on the album, would you be taking some of these guys on the road with you?
I doubt it. That’s why I didn’t have so many cameos where it’s all split up — especially for single-type things. Damian’s on the chorus and he’s on a verse, so that’s hard enough. We’re probably gonna do some shows here and there together if his schedule permits it. But that’s why I kept a lot of the cameos close together. As far as Too $hort and Kurupt, they’re on the same song ‘When We’re Fucking’. It’s not like I have them spread out throughout the whole album. That’s one of my pet peeves, having an album of 17 songs and you’ve got 15 fucking appearances from other artists. That’s ridiculous. And I think the way we did it, it doesn’t seem like your typical cameo or feature. It seems like they were meant to be a part of the album. Because I reached out to people I’d been wanting to work with for a long time and it had nothing to do with whether they had a record out or were selling records or whatever. It was based off of the respect and admiration I had for them as an artist as opposed to what they could do for my record as far as sales go. For me, it was more of a creative thing.
Was that the case with Buckshot and Too $hort?
For sure. Too $hort is a West Coast legend. When we made that song, we were like, ‘Wow, this would be great with Too $hort on it.’ So we reached out to Too $hort. We pretty much had the concept before we even laid one thing down. We reached out to $hort and he blessed us with a hot verse. It’s a pretty crazy, typical way-out Too $hort verse. And fortunately we got Kurupt on it with us as well. We ended up lucking out. With Buckshot, we have a big mutual respect for one another. It was one of those things where we weren’t really gonna put another cameo on, but being that he’s a big part of Duck Down and he’s one hell of a rapper, we were like, ‘Why don’t we just get Buckshot to get on the record?’ We opened up one of the tracks (‘Everything You Want’), sent it over to him and he blessed us with it. It ended up working out really well because he flipped the verse. It’s really good.
I’m really looking forward to hearing "Psycho Revolution," the song you did with Sick Jacken, because I’m a big fan of both of your work with Psycho Realm. What can you tell me about the song’s theme?
That actually was produced by Jacken as well. It’s a Psycho Realm type of theme — like street politics and just a raw hip-hop vibe all rolled into one. The street politics hip-hop, you can’t go wrong with that! So we hadn’t done a track together in a long time and a lot of people were always asking us to do a track together. So in the middle of making the album, I had a lot of songs and I called Jack over and said, ‘Hey, I need a couple songs for the record. I want you to hear the record so you know the direction I’m going in. If you’ve got something that fits, send it over.’ He had something that fit perfectly, which was ‘Psycho Realm Revolution.’ I put my verse on it and had a spot for him to get on it because I couldn’t have a beat of his without him rapping on it. It would just be ridiculous. I knew that the Psycho Realm and Cypress Hill fans would eat that shit up because they’d been waiting for us to do a collaboration for a long time. So I thought that was a perfect opportunity to make that happen.
Who are some of these other artists on the album — Young De, Tek and Bo Roc?
Young De and Tek are from a group formerly called Tangled Dots based out of Philly. They’re Kurupt’s boys. And Young De is one of the guys we recruited onto the Audio Hustlaz team to be a part of our family, write songs and eventually put him out as a solo artist. So I had him featured on my record and we’ve got him featured on a lot of the Cypress Hill record coming up. He helped me put it together conceptually as far as some of the songs go. So he’s a big part of the team right now. Tek was his rhyme partner in Tangled Dots, so we brought in Tek to sprinkle some of the stuff here and there. It sounds really good. They’ve been on the scene for a while. They’re just more of an underground type of group. But we’re trying to bring them overground. Bo Roc was formerly of a group called Dub Shack based out of Long Beach. They had this song called ‘Summertime in the LBC’ back in the day that was a big song for them. That pretty much happed through my partner J. Turner. He knew a couple cats who knew Bo Roc and we needed somebody to sing over a couple of the choruses and he came through and blessed us with what we have on the choruses now, which turned out to be great because he’s got a cool voice. He’s very overlooked and I think after this album, people will be reaching out for him.
Two singles from the album so far are "Fire" and "Don’t Ya Dare Laugh." Can you tell me the inspirations for those two songs?
‘Fire’ is pretty much a weed theme. When I first wrote it, it was meant to be a hot song in a club, setting the club on fire. But when Damian got on it, he made a reference that we’re blazing and stuff. So it turned into a blaze anthem. That’s basically where that song went. ‘Don’t Ya Dare Laugh’ is a theme to California. That’s pretty much it. The song is called ‘Don’t Ya Dare Laugh’ so it was something different as opposed to something about California. But the gist of the song is a California theme type of anthem.
Have you heard any more about Kannibus Cartel, the album that’s a collaboration between Kottonmouth Kings, Cypress Hill and Potluck?
I’ve heard of that, but I don’t really know too much about it. I’ve heard it thrown around, but I don’t know how legitimate it’s gonna be because really I haven’t had any conversations with anybody in regards to making the shit happen and pushing it through and who’s producing what and all that other information. I mean, we’ll see. It would be a cool idea.
For the fans who have kept up with your series of "Gunslinger" mixtapes, is your official solo debut album going to be a big departure from those CDs?
Yeah, I mean the ‘Gunslinger’ mixtapes were basically warmups to this. It was preparing me for this because I hadn’t done too much writing before that because we were doing so much touring. I took some time off to clear my head, so when I got back on the pen and on the mic, it was through the ‘Gunslinger’ series. I knew we weren’t gonna have any certified albums on the market for a while, and you’ve gotta keep your name out there. You’ve gotta keep momentum rolling and stuff like that. So I figured the mixtapes would be a good avenue for that to keep our name out there, keep people interested and let them know that we haven’t gone under or gone away or whatnot. They served their purpose and they got me ready as far as tightening up my writing skills and my vocal performances on the mic in the studio. It helped me to tighten all that stuff up so that when I got serious to do the album, I’d be ready and prepared.
Is there any news as far as a Cypress Hill release date for the forthcoming "Smoke" LP?
We’re looking at June. Right now, we’re mixing the Cypress Hill record. My record will come out in February, I’ll do some touring and then Cypress Hill will come out in June and we’ll start that whole cycle all over the place. Between the Cypress Hill shows, I’ll be doing shows for my ‘Smoke N Mirrors’ album too. So I’m gonna be quite busy in ’09, but that’s the way I like it. I like to keep it moving.
Do you know which label will be releasing the new Cypress Hill album?
No, not yet. Right now we’re just focusing on finishing our record before we take it anywhere because we don’t want to just take the record somewhere based off of, ‘Oh, we’ve got Cypress Hill now.’ We want to find the right home for the record. Just like I waited and took my time to find the right situation for my solo record, we’re gonna do the same thing with Cypress because Cypress can’t just be anywhere. It has to be in the right place with people that understand the direction and how we push this vehicle.
Any final comments for your fans reading Murder Dog?
I just want to thank the fans for the years of loyalty and support. And you won’t be disappointed in the wait for the next Cypress album or my solo record.