Tequila Sunrise by Cypress Hill - koko

            Cypress Hill is the first Latino-American hip-hop group to have Platinum and multi-platinum albums. They have sold a total of over 18 million albums worldwide. Cypress Hill started off with two brothers name Ulpiano Reyes (Mellow Man Ace) and Senen Reyes (Sen Dog). Their family originally migrated from Cuba back in 1971. In 1988, the two brothers formed a group called DVX with DJ Muggs and B-Real but changed their group name to Cypress Hill after Mellow Man Ace found a solo career for himself. This blog will be analyzing the cultural aesthetic in the song Tequila Sunrise by Cypress Hill.  

            When we listen to Cypress Hill, we notice their strong roots in the Latin culture. For example, in the song Tequila Sunrise, Cypress Hill mentions eating the worm at the bottom of tequila bottle as well as drinking·   Jose Cuervo down in Tijuana, Mexico. We can see Cypress Hill represent their Latin culture when the song Tequila Sunrise start off with a conversation in Spanish between B-Real and Sen Dog.  This would not have been possible if it weren’t for the Latinos like Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, Rock Steady Crew, and especially Charlie Chase, who fought for their rightful place in the African American dominated Hip Hop culture.

             

Out of all the Latinos that represented their culture in the Hip Hop scene, one that affected Cypress Hill the most would have to be DJ Charlie Chase. Charlie Chase was born to a Puerto Rican-born parents in 1959 and played a key role in establishing Latinos as a contributing force in black dominated New York Hip Hop culture. He was the only Latino member in the well-known Hip Hop group called The Cold Crush Brothers in the 80’s. During that time many people mistook African ethnicity as the African aesthetic in Hip Hop so not many understood of the multicultural component of Hip Hop culture. Charlie Chase fought to change the direction Hip Hop was headed. He snuck in a beat from the number “Tu Coqueta” in the middle of a jam and countered the Afrocentric view of Hip Hop history at the New Music Seminar by speaking up when people started saying Hip Hop was a ‘black thing’. Charlie Chase reminded the people at the seminar that Hip Hop has nothing to do with ethnicity. Hip Hop was a street thing and anybody from the street can be a part of it because environment does not choose people by their skin color.