Sen Dog

Cypress Hill's almighty badass talks about his new solo release.

Diary Of A Mad Dog is a great title for the new solo release from Sen Dog of the mighty Cypress Hill - listening to it gives you a glimpse into exactly what it would probably say in his weed-leaf doodled journal (if he indeed keeps one).

You've got your rolling with your homies tracks ("Jugger," "Let's Roll," "Capo"), your gangsta tough-guy moments ("Fumble," "Backin' Up My Gang," "Stand Up"), your ogling seduction ("Hood Rat Love"), your socio-political views number ("Biggy Bang") ... all the things one would scrawl about in their diary.  And it's just as honest.

I spoke to Sen D-O-G-G-Y (whose given name is Senen Reyes) the other day about his new album, and you soon find that the guy whose raps and rhymes draw you in on the recording, is exactly the same cat you get in real life (though he is usually more casually dressed than the slicked-up playa on the album's cover).

His manager/label owner (Subarban Noize) asked him to do a solo album, which is how he came to branch out from Cypress Hill.  He was always writing songs, so when the time came for him to do his own thing, he was ready to throw down.  "I wanted to be different than what's going on out there, got some drum and bass, some techno, some electronica...it's all there."  Yep it is, including elements of his Cuban roots, some horns, as well as some good,  o.g. turntable scratching.

Diary hints that it might be a more personal endeavor, so I asked him about that.  Sen said, "Last year was all upside down, nothing going right, it was like a drama movie.  I started calling that the 'Diary Of A Mad Dog' Era."   Of course I had to know what the drama was all about, which is when he told me about having suffered a "slight" heart attack a year ago last July.  He'd been out partying at the Rainbow, came home and was "drinking a 40" in the garage, when he felt some crazy pain in his heart ("If that's a slight one, I don't want to know what a real one is like, that shit hurt like a motherfucker").  His Mom took him to the hospital, where he had surgery for his clogged arteries, keeping him in the hospital for 10 days.  When he got out, he said, "you definitely appreciate stuff more, you want to experience more..." which he clearly does. 

That health scare has not slowed him down one bit.  I saw him play a bunch of times this spring - surfing over the crowd, partying harder than anyone, and sweating out his tunes like a teenager.  I would NEVER have guessed that this was a man who had recently suffered such a setback.  I told him that, and he replied, "The energy of the show keeps you up for it," and you know that's true if you've ever been to one of his shows.  You can tell on the album that it all has got him thinking hard (about family, friends, life, nasty little girls and, um ... money and kush), while making damn sure he continues to have as much fun as possible.

As Cypress Hill prepares to accept the VH-1 Hip Hop Honors Award this week, and is in the studio preparing their new album, Sen says "right now, it's all about Cypress."  That shows his loyalty to the band that gave him his cred, even as his own album is now coming out.  I'd put them in different areas of the c.d. rack though (if you still have one); Diary Of A Mad Dog would fit snugly in with the likes of the more conscious raps of Atmosphere.  {Psst, that would be a good tour!}

Knowing Sen a little bit, and his penchant for the Rainbow scene, I had to ask him which of his new songs he'd blast to get jazzed up as he drove down Sunset towards a night out.  He answered immediately, "'Biggy Bang,' 'Fumble,' and 'Don't Sleep On The Streets.'"  So I gave it a shot...and it did the trick.  I wound up having plenty to write about in my own diary, with the perfect soundtrack thumping as I wrote.