B Real Reflects On Hip Hop’s Role In Marijuana Activism

With his latest Dr. Greenthumb branded mixtape released earlier this month, Cypress Hill frontman B Real caught up with HipHopDX to talk about the group’s decades-long call for marijuana legalization and the role of the Hip Hop community more generally in marijuana activism.

Recalling Cypress Hill’s early stake in legalization efforts, B Real explained why he’s tried to approach the issue collectively.

“I guess we pretty much were at the forefront,” B Real told Ural Garrett as a part of today’s DX Daily. “People came in with us. I don’t say so much after us because it wasn’t too much after Red and Meth and Snoop Dogg and them were talking about the shit right along with us. Maybe we were the first but I look at it like they came with us. I never look at that shit like territorial. For me, I believed in the movement so much that I felt that more of us that talked about it made it a stronger push, made it a stronger argument. Look where we are, from ’91 to now, in that whole culture. There’s 16, 17 states—maybe 19—that have legislation with medical marijuana and two that are fucking outright legal to consume. Us pushing together made that happen I think. It was definitely a part of making that happen. Had we got all on some territorial shit, like, ‘No, I was the one that started this,’ or, ‘We were the one’s that started this,’ or shit like that it would have fragmented the movement and we wouldn’t have the gains we have now. So for me we all did it together even if it was through individual efforts.”