Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill is an American hip-hop group formed in South Gate, California in 1988. One of the first Latin American groups to gain mainstream recognition in hip-hop, they have sold over 20 million albums worldwide, and have obtained multi-platinum and platinum certifications.

Emerging from South Gate in 1991, Cypress Hill became the first Latino rap group to achieve platinum status, a milestone that legitimized Latin voices in a genre still dominated by Black American narratives. B-Real's nasal, menacing delivery became instantly recognizable across *Cypress Hill* (1991) and the platinum juggernaut *Black Sunday* (1993), albums that proved West Coast hip-hop could thrive beyond gang rhetoric and into psychedelic production and crossover appeal. The group's feud with Ice Cube's Westside Connection—rooted in a disputed sample on the *Friday* soundtrack that Cypress Hill claimed was lifted from "Throw Your Set in the Air"—revealed the territorial stakes of the era, even as both acts competed for the same cultural space.