By Odeisel

So many times in this business you hear the word real.  Keeping it real, I’m real, etc. are thrown around so much that you get numb to it.  But real does have value when it’s genuine and Planet Ill had the fortune to sit down with the legendary B Real of Cypress Hill. Over the course of a career almost 20 years long, B Real has toured the world and learned many things about himself, the industry, and music overall. Sit back, relax and take a ride on the real side.  No really.

Planet IlI:  How different in spirit is your solo music compared to your Cypress Hill catalogue?

B Real: Well you know the difference between my solo stuff and Cypress Hill, there are some big differences.  Obviously I don’t have the support of….well I have the support of my brothers but like they’re not there to create the songs with me and perform them with me and just where we took the concepts even.  As opposed to having 3 guys, 4 guys contributing on the creative level, I have to pull from whatever I was feeling or thinking or creatively vibing on and stuff like that so it was a little bit more of a challenge because when you have three guys come together for this particular thing it makes it easier on everybody because everybody has some pretty decent ideas and we bounce those ideas off of each other creatively and if we all think they’re cool, we use them.  With a solo endeavor, you’re pretty much judging your own shit and hopefully the people around you give you an honest opinion.  So it’s a little bit more of a challenge, but it’s all good with me.  I love a good challenge.

Planet IlI: After this long in the game I would venture to say you’ve achieved fairly iconic status.  Has your approach to music changed at this point in your career than it did when you were new to the music?

B Real:  My approach to it hasn’t really changed.  You have to evolve, that’s for sure.  You can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over.  But the way I approach it creatively has always been a vibe.  I let the music take me wherever I need to go and I have never changed that because if you try too many different things you may go out of pocket.  It’s cool to take yourself out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself but if you take yourself out of your pocket that’s the worst thing you can do as a rapper, as a writer, as a performer and stuff like that.  So you try to evolve with what’s going on because the style changes every five years but you have to find where you fit and then lead the pack once you get in there, if you have what it takes to do that. 

Our approach definitely hasn’t changed with how hungry we are when we make music and how we come to put it together but as far as promoting and marketing and the way you push it, yea that’s changed.  You have to be a little bit more creative and a little bit more hands on.  You can’t depend on the labels just to do everything.  You have to actually go out there and put in a lot more work in than you used to have to ten yrs ago.  So that part has changed but creating the music, not really. 

Planet Ill:  I’ve seen you guys live a couple times and I know you’ve got the bongos and there are a lot of Afro-Cuban rhythms in your music.  How important is the cultural aspect of what you produce.

B Real:  Well we never looked at any of those types of things.  We never looked within our ethnicity to borrow anything from it.  Our thing is very much a vibe so whatever we were vibing at the time, it was us. So when we were making the first album we were doing all these crazy types of things; that was us, and then we hit stuff like “Latin Lingo” and stuff like that,it wasn’t anything that we plotted out.  It was just things that came about naturally because we were very much about being who we are and so, who we are every now and then, well most of the time, spills out on the record.  So when you hear stuff like that it’s just us being us.  We never wanted to exploit it or anything like that like others tried.  We felt that if we exploited ourselves then …..

Planet IlI: ….You would just be the Spanish rapper….

B Real: ….Yea we would get pretty much pigeon holed into that one little market and at that time, that market was a very small market and you couldn’t really live off that.  You couldn’t make a career from that.  Now you can, but back then you couldn’t.  So we just wanted to make music that everyone could vibe to, not just Latin people, so we just made the focus on making the music and worrying about everything else after.

Planet IlI:  Fair enough.  What is your favorite record, non Hip-Hop?

B Real:  I don’t know.  There are so many.  I could say any of the Bob Marley records.  I could say Yellow Submarine by the Beetles.  I could say the first Black Sabbath album.  I mean there are so fucking many.  I was influenced by so much different music, different genres, it wasn’t just any one particular thing.  I listen to old soul/r&b (oldies), I listen to blues, reggae and every form of reggae at that, not just dancehall but the dub and ska all that shit; and then obviously Hip-Hop and rock and metal and punk.  I could say I have a favorite record in every genre, I could say that.  It’s hard to pin point one but one of my favorite records coming up as a kid was that second Public Enemy album.  I mean the first one was banging but the second one, they really fucking killed it and I was a HUGE Public Enemy fan so if I had to say any one album it was that album.

Planet Ill:  You’ve sold a lot of records on a global level.  What is the difference between working within the indie structure and working with the major structure? 

B Real:   Well with the indie structure, it’s really hands on.  They have resources but not quite the same resources as the major labels so they have to think out the box and be really creative with any form of campaign that they’re gonna put out  towards selling some records.  It’s limited but you have the freedom to do what the fuck you want to do.  You don’t have to answer to all the big wigs at the corporate label.  It’s very much the way you make it.  As much work as you want to put into it possibly dictates your success.  And you get more of the cut on an independent label these days depending on what your deal is.  With the major labels they take so much more from you but they have all the resources to really put you out globally and give you a chance to win but you’re not getting as big a cut. 

It’s like a line I heard in Cadillac Records.  There was a scene where they were talking to, when they were breaking chuck berry.  Mos Def was playing Chuck Berry.  The DJ said to the effect “Are you ready?  Do you really want this” because if he played the record it would make him (the owner of Cadillac records) rich and you (Chuck Berry) famous.”  And it meant it was gonna make the owner of Cadillac Records rich but it was gonna make Chuck Berry not rich, but famous.  And that has been the standing order of any record deal. 

Some artists do end up selling a lot of records and depending on how their deal is structured they get paid and they are pretty well off but not everybody gets such a fucking sweet deal where you’re gonna be rich for the rest of your fucking life.  You may be famous but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fucking balling out. So that one line right there describes what it is with the record company.  They can make you famous but they’re the ones that are fucking making all the fucking money.  But I think it just depends on the way your deal is structured.  Some people get a fair deal and they have a chance to do really well depending on how good the music really is.  Some people jump into it without the proper management or lawyers to watch their asses.  They go into it blind and they end up getting fucked.

Read Part 2 Later

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