B-Real's Advice for Performers | Joe Rogan

When was your first time ever getting on stage? Do you remember? First time, there used to be a club called Radiotron here in the 80s, right? And it was the hip hop club. If you were into hip hop, any aspect of it, whether it was rapping, breakdancing, popping, graffitin, all the people went to that spot. And it was hard to get in there and it was hard to get on the mic no less. But we had a homie who was like a legendary DJ out here when the AM station was playing hip hop. His name was Tony G and he was the leader of the Mix Master show. The head Mix Master. And he had a residency at the Radiotron. So we grew up with one of his boys that was his protege. So they invited us over and myself and Sen got on the mic and Mello and I froze the fuck up. I tell you, I froze up. I forgot every rap I ever wrote or ever memorized. I was like, uh, it would be one of the two times that I would freeze in my life. And it was, that was the first time I was on stage and all those people looking at me waiting, expecting something, I totally blew it, you know? And I told myself, okay, I got to get over the nervousness. And then the other thing we were doing was, it was like, um, they wanted rappers to do this PSA for some bullshit, right? And they wanted us to write this rap and put all this certain information in there. And I had it. I had it memorized. I had it locked in. The minute they said go and they were filming it, you know, this is to film it. I kept fucking it up horribly. I didn't even get through it. I was like, I'm sorry. I can't do it. Fuck. I was getting mad at myself doing that. Fuck what's wrong with me? Were you high? No, I wasn't. Maybe that was the problem. That was probably the problem, you know, because when I'm not high is when shit like this happens, right? So those are the two times that I totally fucked it up. And I like from the last time I said, I'll never do that again. I'm going to be prepared and I'm going to get through the anxiety or whatever it is. So those were the first two times. But the first time on stage where I actually pulled it off was probably one of our first showcases. It was at this place off of the 10 and it wasn't a showcase. It was actually a competition. You know how they used to do competitions at clubs like fucking what do they call it? I forgot what they used to call them. But you know, different bands would it was like a battle of the bands, right? So we went in and I'm coming off of that horrible fucking deal that had just happened, you know, maybe a month or two before. And I totally got over it. And we were performing real estate, you know, in this showcase. And we lost, but we made the biggest impression there because the song, you know, we performed it like, you know, the way that it's supposed to be. And then at the end, Sendog jumped on the big judges table. And he, you know, he grabbed his balls right in front of the fucking female judge. And then as he jumps off the table, it breaks in half into her lap. Oh, no. And everybody loved it. We lost to these dudes who are like new addition wannabes. We call them Tootsie Rolls, but we don't remember. They won. But in reality, we won because that's what everybody was talking about us at the end, you know, like how raw that was. And after that show, I realized, you know, this is this is how I'm supposed to do it. And I seen KRS one do a show one time where the sound went out. He didn't have a stage. He was on a couple of tables that were put together. And he just got up in front of the whole club, no microphone, no music, and just started rapping his verses. And people were rapping right along with him, not giving a fuck that the sound turned off. But the fact that he just continued to do the show. And that right there taught me a lot about how you control shit on stage. Yeah, sometimes when things go wrong, it's a great opportunity. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We did a show at the improv last month, like maybe my last month or the month before the power went out. And they're like, what do you want to do? I said, fuck it. Let's do a show. I could yell. Yeah. So we just did. Everybody just did the show with no microphone. But that was the improv, the small room. It's only 180 people. Yeah. I mean, that place was a small place too. But I mean, it goes to show you, man, if you got it, you can do it. Yeah. It's probably better sometimes because it's unique. Yeah. Because people will remember. Yeah. The other way, yeah, it probably would have been a great show and people would be talking about it. But they'll remember the fact that you got over that adversity and were able to still deliver. And that's the shit that KRS1 did for me. He showed me through the adversity. He kept doing the show and the people were still with him. And I thought, OK, one day that's going to be me and I'm going to do what the teacher does. And, you know, that that that had been one of the most important things that I learned, you know, and watching others do shows and stuff like that. And what I would do when I got up there, you know, and I applied all those. Those lessons, man, you know, and and it's made me who I am as my part of Cypress Hill. And when I do my solo stuff and when I'm with Prophets of Rage that, you know, that got me prepped for everything that I do now in terms of music. Now how did you well, it's good that you for you to tell people that you had a real hard time your first time performing. Oh, yeah. There's probably a lot of people out there that go never say anxious. Yeah. A lot of people never say that. They lie, you know, but that's I think that's important. And there's nothing wrong with those feelings, man. It's it's good. You got to learn, man. You're a kid. It's it's it's like you liken it to to like college stars that are coming into the professional sports now like basketball players, for instance, you get this number one draft pick. He comes to a team and everybody has these high expectations. No one knows that this kid, you know, some people own the space like LeBron and Kobe and Kevin Garnett who came straight from high school and they own the space the minute they got in it. I mean, Kobe had to work. Yeah. It wasn't the greatest. You know, when he when he started, he had to work to get to where he was at. And and a lot of these guys do some of them, you know, again, they come in and they already got it. You know, like LeBron, he was, you know, playing a groans groan man's game right when he got into the league thrown into the fire. But he was ready for that. He got better and and learned the role and learned who he was as he's gone. But he was one of those rare thing, rare people that can just jump into it. Some people have to get better at it. Yeah. And you know, it's the same thing with music. Like you get thrown on on that big stage for the first time. If you're not prepped for it, you're going to definitely be nervous. Now you could either embrace that and it'll it'll be your first show and you could do a good one or you could do a horrible one. But either way, you can learn from that. Yeah. And if you don't learn from it, then the run is short. If you learn from it, you know, you know, you learn how to to get better and sustain a longer career. How did you learn how to get over the anxiety? Like your first show, having the first show suck like that. What was it? How did what did you learn? Like how did you how did did you take classes? Did you read a book? We know what we did that helped me was that we rehearsed a lot because for me, it was like more remembering the songs. It wasn't like the nerve to go out in front of people because we came from the breakdance in B-Boy culture, the popping and stuff like that. So much of that is going against someone battling someone in front of a crowd. And if you can be in front of a crowd doing that, because that's vulnerable. I mean, you know, because in a battle you could either win or you lose. And if you lose, you know, obviously you can lose in an embarrassing way or you lose in a close battle. But either way, people are sitting there watching you, judging you, either cheering you or booing you when you know any one of those. So that helped me be able to get on stage and perform in front of people. It for more for me, it was more about knowing the songs, making sure that I know them through the nervousness. You know, and so for us, we did a lot of rehearsals in the early days, just so that those first shows that we did, that we were locked in and we made an impression. And you know, when we did that and we saw the results of how people were reacting to our show, it gave me more confidence. So you know, I'd rehearse the songs in my head, you know, when I wasn't around the other guys. I'd be kicking the songs and I'd be or be on a treadmill working out, saying the songs, you know, getting them in my head and just gave me the confidence that I know this fucking shit. I go up there, I'll rock this fucking thing. I'm not going to forget it because that's always the problem for me. It was never getting in front of people. It was, do I know my shit? And now I know it in such a way that like, you know, it's second nature. Do I still get those nervous butterflies? Yeah, for sure. Some shows, depending who's watching, who's on the side stage or how big the crowd is and whatnot. Yeah, I still get some of that. But you know, I do a quick meditation before I go out there, you know, just in my head real quick and then our band prayer and then that's the switch right there and we go and we're ready. And it, but it took me a while to get to that, you know, because it takes work. It's like anything, if you're an athlete, if you're a boxer, you're only going to get better by boxing all the time, training all the time, not over training, but making sure that you're in there putting in the work. And it's the same thing when you're rocking stages, you know, a lot of us sometimes forget to go and put the time in and rehearse. And you could see that when there's a sloppy show or someone's out of breath or they're not saying the whole line or they said the line wrong or they're changing up fragments of the song to make it easier for their performance and it doesn't necessarily fit. That's when you know, somebody ain't putting in the work, but for us, you know, we always, you know, that was a part of the draw for Cyprus. That's how we won a lot of people over was the energy of our live show. So but it took that the rehearsals, man. And I would tell any artist coming up right now, man, before you start doing your shows, you may get a hit like that fast these days and you may be called to go do that show. Now, if you don't do that show right and you suck, as good as that song is, you're never going to sell tickets when they fucking say, hey, so and so is performing at the, you know, this place. Ah, fuck that. I'd rather just listen to the record. He sucks life, you know, so rehearse, man, rehearse. And then after that, hey, take, you know, do what you will. But those they fucking help, man, you know, for your confidence on performing the song. That's a wise thing to tell people, man, be a professional, be a pro. You can be a professional, decide you're a professional. That's right. In that fucking work. That work does give you confidence and it works with fighting. It works with comedy. I'm sure it works with everything. Yeah, man. You got to be pro-ficial, professional, red D, professional and official at the same time. What is the meditation that you do? Just the self-awareness, you know what I mean? Like the circular breathing, you know, and concentrating on that and in the moment and then, you know, just letting that clear my head. You know what I mean? Just focus, focusing on the breathing. I mean, that's what they tell you pretty much in any meditation to focus on the breathing and all these things are going to come through your head. But if you keep on focusing on that, you know, everything sort of goes away and you're reset. So, you know, I'll do that when I feel maybe some sort of anxiety before going on. If I don't feel that, I don't necessarily do the meditation. I'll, we'll just do the prayer and that's sort of like, you know, sets it all in. But yeah, like some shows, man, I'll have to like go in a room and just sit there and, you know, do the breathing, man. And it helps. People might think, man, what the fuck is I going to do? It's going to reset your mind and give you some clarity. You know, for me, at least that's what it did.