B Real Of Cypress Hill Releases Smoke N Mirrors With Help From Snoop, Xzibit, TOO

B Real discusses his debut solo album “Smoke n Mirrors” and how it was to have so many of his friends help out on the project

Cypress Hill’s B Real has released his latest solo album “Smoke n Mirrors” and with guest appearances from Snoop Dogg, Damian Marley, Kurupt, Too $hort, Sen Dog and Xzibit, to name a few, B Real had the luxory of working with some of his closest friends, who just happen to be some of rap’s biggest talents. B Real even talked about originally writing a song only for Snoop with the thought he would be the only cameo appearance, but once word got out B Real was working on the album more and more of his friends asked to be a part of it.

Artisan News caught up with B Real to get his thoughts of on having his old friend Snoop Dogg make a guest appearance on “Smoke n Mirrors.”

“Yeah I mean that’s how we do it. He’ll ask me to come out on something and then I’ll ask him to come out on something and we just go back and forth like that. He was the only guy that I had intended to be on the record. You know all the other cameos just sort of happened. He was the only one that I specifically made this beat for. It was like ‘O.K. let’s get him on it.’ Fortunately it worked out man because he’s a busy dude. But he did me a solid in return and knocked it out.”

B Real also talked about having guests fall into his lap during the recording session and why it was hard for him to say no.

“Once I got Snoop on it people started wanting to hear more of it. Then it just started falling into my lap. You know I couldn’t not have Xzibit on it when he’s asking me ‘Yo, let me get on this track.’ I’m like ‘Hell yeah get on that track. I mean, that sounds like a good idea to me and then with the Too $hort song, my partner Jay Turner and Young De came up with the idea and I was like wow that’s a crazy idea I don’t know if it’s going to work on our record but if we got Too $hort it would sound way crazy.”

The first single of “Smoke n Mirrors” is the song “Fire” which features Damian Jr. Gong Marley and the video was directed by Matt Alonzo. B Real talked about Damian performing so well in the studio that he was forced to alter the song to fit his peformance.

“When I first made the song it was kind of meant to be a club anthem and the original version didn’t have Damian on it. But I’d seen him at a function that we were at to support Snoop Dogg and when I’d seen him I said he would be perfect on this song. So I asked him if he’d get on the song and he said yes. I sent him the tracks and he sent them back to me and I had to change up the whole, everything I’d done on the track because he had killed it. So, then it went from being a club type anthem to you know a smokers type anthem.”

“Smoke n Mirrors” was released via B Real’s label Audio Hustlaz and as of press time the only tour date for B Real will be headlining the Paid Dues Independent Hip Hop Festival in Southern California on March 28th. Also slated to appear will be Slaughterhouse, Atmosphere, Tech N9ne, Living Legends and Brother Ali to name a few. B Real and Cypress Hill are also in the mixing stages of their upcoming album which is slated for release later this year.