Cypress Hill
Rise Up

The Cypress Hill are back, finally. Finally because it's been 6 years (!) since the last album of the historic group from Los Angeles with Latina roots, the, in my opinion, not extraordinary "Till Death Do Us Apart".

After years of solo projects and fans' fears of an imminent breakup, the band returns and releases this new album: "Rise Up". The Cypress Hill have been and are one of the most important bands in the hip hop scene of the last two decades, pioneers of crossover as well; and consequently, expectations are many and high. Let's start with the analysis of this album: introduced by a self-celebratory beginning that verbally recalls the band's beginnings, there are 2 honest tracks sampled in the classic hip hop style: the first single accompanied by a video “It Ain't Nothin’” with the (brief) participation of Young De and "Light It Up", honest, I said, meaning good but nothing extraordinary.

But the bomb comes immediately in the third track: the riff begins, it’s really him, the style is unmistakable, it's Tom Morello. So let's indulge in clichés: for a moment it seems that the RATM have resurrected, that they have finally given a more concrete follow-up to the 2007 reunion; okay, now the autosuggestion ends, Zack is not there, of course, but B Real is someone who knows what he's doing, perhaps this explains why in the months following the dramatic departure of the guerrilla Zack from RATM, the frontman of Cypress Hill was credited as his successor. The song is a masterpiece, there's no denying it. This is crossover, it’s nothing new, but the perfect fusion between rock and rap is perfectly represented by this track, no sampling, 100% house trademark. All seasoned with a lyric that tells of climbing from the slums: "Living in the big city the American dream, is far roaming in the streets of greed, everywhere I turn I'm on a mission for more/ but I ain't selling my soul, with the dope there's no girl, I'm on a one way box to the top/ Gotta rise up (to the top, to the top), can't stop (how high can