Cypress Hill: Black Sunday (2LP) [COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

This 180g 2LP set comes in a gatefold jacket. Black Sunday debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 261,000 copies in its first week and went on to sell 3.4 million in the US.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Second albums are supposed to be the tricky ones. Cypress Hill's debut was still in the Top 10 when Black Sunday landed next to it, which made the Los Angeles trio the first hip-hop group ever to have two albums in the Top 10 at the same time. Recorded across studios in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia and mixed at Studio 4 in Philadelphia, it came out bigger and darker than the debut.

DJ Muggs produced almost all of it, wrapping B-Real's nasal sneer and Sen Dog's bark in murky, spooky grooves. "Insane in the Brain" became the crossover hit, while "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That," produced by T-Ray around a Black Sabbath sample, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance. "Lick a Shot" and "Hand on the Glock" keep the menace up, and Joe Nicolo and Chris Schwartz of Ruffhouse steered it as executive producers.

The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll had it at No. 29. NME ranked it No. 8 of 1993 and Q put it among the year's 50 best albums. Thirty-odd years on, "Insane in the Brain" still fills a dance floor faster than a fire drill empties one.

Also at Kops: more Cypress Hill on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Ruffhouse / Columbia / Legacy, a reissue of the 1993 album.