EPMD Helped Cypress Hill Get Their Start | Joe Rogan

Yeah, the whole rap world has always been fascinating to me, like how someone gets in. Like, how do you get started? Are there open mics? Like, what? Yeah, back in the day, man, someone had to be the guy endorsing you, you know? Like, saying to, you know, these guys over here, hey, man, listen to this, these artists right, or this artist right here. They're the new shit. They're gonna be the one. And then you would have to do a couple showcases and stuff like that, and, you know, win some people over. I mean, we definitely did our share of showcases in the beginning, but we were getting passed on left and right. Because, you know, people thought, you know, what are they talking about with this cannabis shit? And we didn't sound like a West Coast group, you know, because we're trying to sell our shit to West Coast labels here, and they did not get us. It wasn't until, you know, Muggs had, you know, he'd previously been in a group called 73, and he had worked with these guys called the Rhyme Syndicate, which was Ice-T's guy. So, he kind of, you know, he was the guy that people knew. And then, Sendog's brother, Melo Manase, eventually would get in the door. And so, people started hearing about us through, you know, through more Muggs than Melo. Melo didn't really do shit for us, you know, all truth told. But Muggs, you know, they kept hearing about a group that he was forming outside of 73, which came to be Cypress Hill. And so, you know, the guys that worked on him, worked with him on the 73 records, which was Joe Niccolo of Rough House Records, you know, he wanted to sign whatever Muggs was doing. And, you know, he eventually ended up signing us, and they had a distribution deal with Sony Music. So, you know, we, you know, put out our records to Rough House Columbia or Rough House Sony, something like that. And that's how we got put on, you know. And again, it had to be word of mouth, because if nobody heard of you, you had to have some really fucking dope music for them to even, like, consider you. If you didn't have, like, someone backing you, it was tough. You know, you had to have someone come speak on your behalf and say, hey, these guys are the new new shit. And fortunately for us, once we put out our snippet tape, like, when Sony put out our snippet tape, guys like EPMD, right? And they were one of our favorite groups in the world, man. They were the top five for Cypress Hill. It was, you know, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, EPMD. Love EPMD. Yeah, fuck. They were the shit. And those were the guys that took our snippet tape and they were showing our snippet tape to other rappers, like, hey, guys, look at these new fucking guys, because, you know, Busta Rhyme told me this story. Yo, yo, son, I heard your shit from EPMD way back in the day. And they was playing for Public Enemy. And I just happened to be in the room and what? And, you know, Ice Cube, when we met him for the first time, you know, and we had our ups and downs with him, but he's one of my homies. He told me, yeah, man, the first time I heard of y'all was through EPMD. We was on tour, was doing a show and they came in with y'all taping. That's how I heard of y'all. And, you know, they were like our first street team, man. Fucking EPMD. Our favorite, one of our top three favorite groups was out there, like, with our snippet tape, telling people, hey, these guys are the new shit. Are they still together? They do stuff occasionally, but I think they do more work individually now. I know Eric Sermon is putting out a record right now. He was just promoting it on some radio show. And, I mean, those guys still stay active. I mean, he's a producer, so he's always making music. But as a rapper, they don't put out as much stuff as they used to. But, yeah, they're still active. You know who I miss? Cool G Rap. Cool G Rap. I still bust out. Hey, a lot of guys don't have a style if he doesn't, you know, if he had never come out. So many people were influenced by him. Yeah. Bad motherfucker. A lot of people forgot about him. A lot of people forgot about him. And he was one of the baddest dudes. I mean, a lot of people, you know, would talk about Big Daddy Kane and rock him. Sure. But you couldn't talk about them without talking about Cool G Rap, because he was like one of those guys. Spitting mad verses, man. His bar work was incredible. Yeah, he was incredible. I still listen to that song, Cock Blocking. Yeah. Every now and then, I'll throw that on. And I got to tell you, you know, if you hear songs that he does today, he is still fucking current. He's still got that style that cuts through. Some of the older artists, they sort of lose the style that people love, and they don't know how to transition into, you know, what their style would be right now. You know, like updating, whatever that style is. You know, a lot of the older artists had troubles doing that, you know. But my man Cool G Rap, not a fucking problem. He's still street blues. He's still ill. Yeah, he was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, I always got confused why he didn't get bigger. I didn't get it. He's got so good. You know, I think it was just the wave that came after him. You know, it's like he was such an underground force. And if you're an underground force, you know, you had to make a conscious decision whether, okay, I'm going to go main. If I go mainstream, I'm going to lose these hardcore fans. I might gain, you know, these mainstream fans. But how long are they going to stay with me as opposed to these core fans that, you know, that they're... But with his style, he couldn't just keep them? I thought he could. A lot of guys kept them, right? You want to know something? I think it was due to, you know, the record company not wanting to take the chance. Because as an artist, you want everybody to hear your shit. For us, we didn't play those games. We said, fuck it. You know, if we felt it was the right look for us, we were going to take it, you know, no matter what anybody thought, you know. And again, you face scrutiny for shit like that. But in the end, you know, if you didn't play yourself, people remember that, you know. And we said, fuck it. We're going to take our music mainstream, even though that was not our intent. You know, we always meant ourselves to be a more underground group. But insane in the brain didn't allow that. It propelled us, you know. So we were like, okay, well, we're going to take our underground asses up into this mainstream and show them how we do it. And it kicked the door open for a lot of other underground acts to go into the mainstream. And we proved that if you do it right and if you stay on your game and if you keep working and stay present and put out quality music, that you can sustain those mainstream fans that you gain right there and the core. Yeah, you guys sustained so well that people covered your shit. Yeah. Like Rage. That was awesome. When they covered pistol grip pump on my left at all times. Holy shit. One of my favorite bands. Zach De La Rocha yelling that. Yeah, that shit was awesome. He took a totally different take on it, but like a cover, but it was a cover, but it was his take. Yeah. It was badass. It was one of my favorites, man, you know, and it was an honor to me because, you know, like, I was really good friends with them to begin with. I saw them come out the gate before they exploded and became Rage Against the Machine. And so for them to cover one of our songs, we're like, man, fuck yeah. You know, because they helped us get better. You know, there was a lot of groups that we looked to for influence, even if they were doing different style of music, like Public Enemy was an influence to us. Rage Against the Machine was an inspiration to us to like push the envelope a little bit more on what we were doing, not necessarily like how they were because they had their own sound, just like we had our own sound. So they made us push, you know, in groups like that made us better. So when we heard this guy fucking doing or this band doing a cover and then they asked us to come play this song with them, which would be their last night as Rage Against the Machine for a long time. This was like their last show right here. We got to do that with them. That must have been amazing. And I was wearing a dad hat before dad hats were cool. I will not wear one right now. Ever. I don't know what I was thinking, but fuck it. That's hilarious. That's hilarious.