Home > Music > B Real > Discography

B-Real Smoke and Mirrors Release Date: 2009 02 24 Label: Duck Down Entaprizez After 17 years in the rap game as the lead lyricist of one of the West Coast's most recognizable crews, Cypress Hill, B-Real shows new life on his debut solo album, Smoke and Mirrors. Opening with a "Stylistics" sample given the chipmunk soul treatment, the nasal-voiced lyricist promptly falls into his familiar flow, contrasting the trials and tribulations of the streets with the up-and-downs of show biz success on the title track. Though DJ Muggs is conspicuously absent behind the boards, the production on Smoke and Mirrors is consistently up to par; its 15 tracks conveying nothing but that quintessential California gangstafied funk. The Soopafly-produced "Gangsta Music" is '70s blaxploitation funk reincarnated as 2000s G-Funk. On the head-nod anthem "Don't Ya Dare Laugh," yet another track whose hook borrows from Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner," B and company define Cali as "the home of marijuana" where "streets get hotter than a sauna." And Muggs' prodigy, the Alchemist provides the record's highlight with "6 Minutes," a seething funk-guitar driven track that allows B to compose a cynical treatise on contemporary hip-hop upstarts. Of course, no Cypress Hill endeavor would be complete without a straightforward weed anthem and the honors here go to the dancehall-inflected "FIRE," featuring Damien Marley which sees B switching between English and Spanish rhymes. Elsewhere, he dredges up more familiar gangsta rap themes including money-getting ("Get That Dough," "Stack'n Paper"), those pesky haters ("When They Hate You") and the token sex-for-sport yarn ("When We're Fucking"). As such, Smoke and Mirrors doesn't offer much in the way of originality, but after nearly 20 years on the mike, B-Real has pretty well perfected his niche and his infectious, nasally rhyme flow, and O.G. vetting commentary on the game and Cali-centric beats should be more than enough to keep fans' heads nodding. Matt Rinaldi, All Music Guide Tracks: Title Composer Time 1 Smoke N Mirrors Freese, Makone, Molina 4:55 2 Gangsta Music Brooks, Freese, Makone 3:19 3 Don't Ya Dare Laugh Ferm, Molina, JOiner, Freese 3:56 4 Everything U Want Brooks, Blake, Freese 3:29 5 6 Minutes Wayne, Ferm, Maman, Freese 3:40 6 Psycho Realm Revolution Freese, Gonzalez 4:46 7 Fire Marley, Freese 3:21 8 10 Steps Behind Wayne, Ferm, Turner, Freese 4:42 9 Get That Dough Wright, Freese 3:53 10 Dr. Hyphenstein Broadus, Ferm, Freese, Bishop 3:58 11 Stack'n Paper Freese, Turner 4:22 12 1 Life Reyes, Gonzalez, Freese 4:21 13 Dude vs. Home Freese, Turner 3:32 14 When They Hate You Nassar, Wright, Freese 3:29 15 When We're F*****g Freese, Brown, Ferm, Shaw, Turner 4:22 Releases: Year Type Label 2009 LP Duck Down Entaprizez 2009 CD Duck Down/Audio Hustlaz 2009 CD Audio Hustlaz/Duck Down

Member Of: Cypress Hill Serial Rhyme Killers More >> Similar Artists: Big Punisher Mellow Man Ace Kemo More >>

Influenced By: Run-D.M.C. Slick Rick Beastie Boys Kid Frost Schoolly D More >>

Browse More Music:
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z