Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain

Released (when else could it have been?) April 20th on Showtime, Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain captures the seminal Californian hip-hop group as they blazed trails—and simply blazed—through the ‘90s and beyond.

Directed by Estevan Oriol, the documentary focuses on an assortment of never-before-seen footage of the group in the midst of its creative process and popular ascent. Musically, at? the trailer’s beginning we hear an unabashed turn to “Insane in the Brain”, Cypress Hill’s first single from their second album, Black Sunday (1993). The song itself is known for being composed of a multitude of samples, even for a hip-hop recording, including segments by George Semper, James Brown, , Sly and the Family Stone, the Youngbloods, and Cypress Hill themselves.

For the first minute, much of the audio is comprised of talking-head laudatory commentary by many of their musical contemporaries; the main rhythm track continues unabated, with other steam track judiciously mixed in between the commentary. At 0:41, the track’s near-iconic squealing sound enters alongside some added reverb—both reinforcing the added sense of scale in seeing them play stadium concerts for the first time. The effect also adds a sense of nostalgia to the proceedings. Notice the quick montage at 0:45 synched to the collage of found sounds as a fill. Further, at 0:48 there’s an added sound of a person exhaling—synched to the video footage, it’s a playful accent on the monologue addressing the group’s unabashed relationship with marijuana.

This presages another exhalation at 1:08, as the music drops out for a moment; a diegetic cymbal at 1:14 leads the musical track back in, now with added crowd noise in order to build to a palpably climactic moment. A bit of vinyl hiss rides the audioviewer out of the trailer while retaining a feeling of immersion in the group’s musical vibrancy.

While “Insane in the Brain” is undoubtedly the safest choice for a documentary about Cypress Hill, there’s no lack of subtly imaginative elements in the musical arrangement to offset that expectedness—perhaps not unlike the engaging mix of sampled work in the music itself.

— Curtis Perry