CYPRESS HILL & LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA – BLACK SUNDAY LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL
We never know where life is going to take us. You might think you have your life planned out, but God laughs at your plans because He knows there’s so much more in store for you. Well, most of the time anyway. Even if things don’t go the way you thought initially, you end up where you’re supposed to be. That’s happened on more than one occasion for some kids raised in the ‘hood who have been able to overcome their situations.
One late night 34 years ago, a video aired on MTV, “How I Could Just Kill A Man,” that I initially didn’t take very seriously, but Q-Tip and Ice Cube were in the video. The video ended up receiving an overwhelming number of plays, and Cypress Hill soon became a household name, especially after being featured in the film Juice. The trio of B-Real, Sen Dog, and DJ Muggs surpassed the odds, churning out hit after hit and even without the applause of the mainstream, and have maintained a core audience many would kill for. Now, Cypress Hill returns – sans Muggs – but joins forces with the London Symphony Orchestra to deliver Black Sunday Live At The Royal Albert Hall. One might say this is the culmination of perseverance and hard work because very few artists grind the way Cypress Hill grinds.
The tracks comprising Black Sunday Live At The Royal Albert Hall are as we all expected, reinterpretations of Cypress Hill’s 2nd album Black Sunday in its entirety! The only difference here is Sen and B-Real also include a few of their other hits to cap it all off with 20 tracks in total. The Cypress keeps the sequence of songs exact to that of Black Sunday, but we have to address the elephant in the room, and that’s conductor Troy Miller and the London Symphony Orchestra elevating each track through instrumentation. The strings, the horns, the xylophone, wind instruments, and percussion are otherworldly. The realization comes on “When The Shit Goes Down,” where the melody remains but canvas the duo raps over has changed as if Mack Gordon and Harry Warren were part of this reenactment. It’s a journey that moves through R&B/Soul with string arrangements that are nostalgic. It is intense. One of the group’s more popular songs in “Hits From The Bong” might have you thinking it’s as close to the original as they can possibly get but this isn’t about rapping over recordings and beats B-Real and Sen Dog have performed with over and over again, it’s something much more refreshing. Horns bellow in the distance and you might miss the quick entry of wind instruments coming in and out. The reworked “Illusions” is lowkey, more so than the original, as strings ride a calm wave and B-Real follows the same pattern. Its percussion is off to the side, distant but audible
It may seem some tracks might be daunting in rearranging them structurally, but Miller seems to have been up to the task as witnessed with “How I Could Just Kill A Man”? Yeah, “How I could Just Kill A Man.” That double bass holds it down, and DJ Lord destroys the turntables, scratching those records, creating his own rhythm as well as delivering a captivating solo. The only complaint I might have is the exclusion of the Sly & The Family Stone sample that the orchestra could have easily recreated. Regardless, the song hits all the right spots. They close out with “(Rock) Superstar,” and even if the band didn’t mention its name, those opening xylophone notes are easily recognizable. This is the opus, the grand finale with deep bass, strings, and a resounding rhythm. Sen and B-Real are on top of their respective games here.
It’s been 32 years since the release of Black Sunday, and now, with Black Sunday Live At The Royal Albert Hall, Cypress Hill, with the help of the London Symphony Orchestra, has created another masterpiece. And it’s live! Cypress Hill will always live on.