The Reno Philharmonic is gearing up to perform with … legendary rap group Cypress Hill.
Yes, you read that right! Cypress Hill is headed to town to perform alongside the Reno Philharmonic for an evening of classically elevated hip-hop. Classics you know and love like “How I Could Just Kill a Man” and “Insane in the Brain” get in touch with their orchestral side, and audiences are in for a treat of nonstop musical transformations.
Cypress Hill and the Reno Philharmonic will perform at the Grand Sierra Resort at 8 p.m., Friday, April 4.
“We have been doing selective symphony shows,” said Cypress Hill percussionist Eric “Bobo” Correa during a recent phone interview. “We’ve done four so far in the States, and now, starting off this year with Reno, we have a few lined up. It’s not exactly a full symphony tour, but … the cities that we have been performing in, we perform with the symphony of that town.”
Correa had high praise for each orchestra with which the rap group has performed, as rehearsal time is very limited.
“I think that we’re going to meet earlier that day of the show and run through things really quick,” Correa said. “If we’re able to get a rehearsal beforehand, that would be great. That’s always a plus. Usually … they just run through it with us the day of the show, and we get it down, and everything is pretty, pretty straightforward.”
Orchestra music has always been on Correa’s radar, but these symphony collabs have increased the percussionist’s appreciation.
“In college, I was in the symphonic band and wind-ensemble things,” he said. “I dabbled in it, and from then on, my appreciation for classical music has grown. When I’m traveling, I’m learning about different composers and things like that. To do something like this was just another level up, because these are the serious players right there. They could play through everything. When you get a chance to play with some pristine players, it makes you get on your A-game. I definitely love the performing part of it, and my appreciation for classical music has now grown extensively.”
Of course, I had to bring up The Simpsons tie-in: In 1996, the episode “Homerpalooza” featured Cypress Hill. During a backstage moment at a music festival, a crew member says, “Somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra. Possibly while high. Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction.” The group then performed a symphonic version of “Insane in the Brain.”
“I’m not going to say that it never would have happened (if not for the joke on The Simpsons), but it definitely was a seed,” Correa said. “If we watered it enough, the possibility would be there. When conversation between us and the London Symphony Orchestra was going on via Twitter in 2017, that’s when the idea started to get a little bit more serious than just the Simpsons thing.”
Cypress Hill tweeted The Simpsons quote back in 2017, and soon after, the London Symphony Orchestra replied. What followed was a short back-and-forth on Twitter about working together, leading the members of Cypress Hill to begin serious talks about a musical collaboration.
“‘What if we did this? How would we do it? How would we approach it? What would we do?’” Correa said. “Who knows if we would have really done it to this magnitude (if not for The Simpsons joke)? But it’s been something great for us.”
On July 10, 2024, Cypress Hill took the Royal Albert Hall stage and finally performed with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Correa said the orchestras add to Cypress Hill’s music in a “cinematic way,” and explained how the group’s music, specifically hit album Black Sunday, fares in an orchestral setting.
“It was always a dark album, and I think that we were able to get that through the arrangements,” Correa said. “(Conductor/arranger) Troy Miller really transformed the mood and translated it into a classical format. After that, we thought, ‘What other songs could we do?’ In some of our songs, the original versions already lend themselves to strings and orchestral kind of stuff, so it was a meeting-in-the middle solution.”
Some of Cypress Hill’s hits will take on new arrangements in this unique concert setting, but the staple melodies and beats of the hip-hop classics will remain.
“Classical music has been used in the sampling of hip-hop forever, so it’s not that it’s anything too new, but it’s the thing of taking these songs and making these different arrangements, which is a different twist,” Correa said. “We’ve taken key sounds and key elements of the songs, so when you hear a song, you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s the sound.’ It’s not all that different. I think that with hip-hop, we’re used to some of the sounds that are there, and without them, it can get lost, so we made sure that we were able to not have that happen.”
Of course, Cypress Hill’s symphony shows are very different from the usual orchestra experience.
“It’s not uncommon to see people dancing in the aisles,” he said. “It’s wild, because at a traditional symphonic concert, you’re sitting down, and you’re chilling. It’s been a great reception so far. People are tripping out on how the music is translating, and if you have video or lights going on with it, it can set a mood. If you’re feeling a little stone-y, it helps for the elevation.”
The boom-bap sounds of 1996 hit “Illusions” has been a particularly special song to get transformed by the symphonies.
“We’ve been doing that song in a few different ways,” Correa said. “The way that it was translated made me think, ‘This is a beautiful thing that we’re doing.’ The whole lot of songs are great, and plus, I get to perform in a suit. I’ve been onstage and done it the grunge way, and now I get to do it in a really nice, three-piece-suit way.”
Correa invited “musically open” folks to experience Cypress Hill and the Reno Philharmonic.
“If you’re a hip-hop purist, this might not be your bag,” he said. “If you want a certain feeling like that, that’s cool, but be open to how this translates. This can even become a new genre—putting together orchestra and hip-hop and coming up with new music like that.”
Cypress Hill will perform with the Reno Philharmonic at 8 p.m., Friday, April 4, at the Grand Sierra Resort, at 2500 E. Second St., in Reno. Tickets start at $49.50. For tickets and more information, visit www.grandsierraresort.com.
Ok. This could be a very interesting concert…and I don’t usually like rap.