EP 140: Felicia Angeja Viator on Cypress Hill’s “Cypress Hill” (1991)

Episode notes

In August of 1991, the LA rap scene was transformed by a trio of Latino rappers from South Gate. Cypress Hill was riding hot off the success of How I Can Just Kill A Man and found a huge audience in LA. DJ Muggs’ production fit in perfect with B-Real and Sen-Dog’s flow and together they helped create the blueprint for a more laid-back and smoked-out style of gangsta rap, a full year before Dre’s The Chronic dropped

Professor and author Felicia Angeja Viator sits down with us to discuss the LA rap scene, B-Reals unique singsong delivery, and Muggs’ talent for finding the perfect loops.

More on Felicia 

• Pick up her book “To Live and Defy in LA”
• The Show Must Go On: Felicia Angeja Viator on “To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America” and “The Batterram” (US History Scene)
• Website |Twitter

More on Cypress Hill

• 25 Years Later, Cypress Hill’s Debut Album Remains an Ahead-of-its-Time Classic (LA Weekly)
• Oliver’s breakdown of How I Can Just Kill A Man

Show Tracklisting (all songs from Cypress Hill unless otherwise indicated):

• Break It Up
• Latin Lingo
• The Phuncky Feel One
• Pigs
• Hand On The Pump
• Real Estate
• The Phuncky Feel One
• How I Can Just Kill A Man
• The Funky Cypress Hill Shit
• The Village Callers: Hector
• The Funky Cypress Hill Shit
• Hand on the Pump
• Gene Chandler: Duke of Earl
• Born to Get Busy
• Hand on the Pump
• Above the Law: Livin’ Like Hustlers
• The Psycho Realm: The Big Payback
• Ice Cube: We Had To Tear This Mothafucka Up

Here is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find there

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