Are Cypress Hill Really Banned From ‘SNL’? B-Real Weighs In

Cypress Hill frontman B-Real has weighed in on the band’s long-standing ban from Saturday Night Live.

It was 1993 when the hip-hop trailblazers were musical guests on the show. During a rendition of their song “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” band member DJ Muggs proudly lit up a joint live on TV, earning an automatic reprimand from SNL creator Lorne Michaels.

The incident received renewed attention during SNL50 when Michaels claimed the show had “never banned” any musical acts. In a recent appearance on the Tuna On Toast with Stryker podcast (watch below), B-Real offered his take on the situation.

“I believe we are [banned]. I believe the ban list is still in effect,” the vocalist insisted, adding that he still respects Michaels and the late-night show. “To this day, I watch. Never stopped watching, even though we got banned. Because I understand it.”

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A B-Real explained, Cypress Hill expected to get banned even before they’d taken the SNL stage. “Our whole thing was we were gonna get banned regardless,” the singer admitted, “and that was sort of the move for us. You know, we were gonna get banned on purpose.”

Cypress Hill’s Original ‘SNL’ Plan Was Even Wilder

As B-Real revealed, Cypress Hill always planned on making a statement with their SNL performance. However, things didn’t go exactly to plan.

“We were gonna wait ‘till the last song and then we were gonna destroy our set,” he remarked, noting Cypress Hill would regularly trash the stage at their concerts, even lighting their gear on fire. “So we were like, well let’s put this visual onto Saturday Night Live and then at the end we’ll smoke. You know, we’ll all pull out our joints and smoke like it’s the aftermath. Like the after sex cigarette type of thing.”

As B-Real recalled, representatives from the band’s record label pleaded with them to keep the SNL performance marijuana-free. DJ Muggs was unimpressed and decided to go rogue, pulling out a joint and declaring “They said I couldn’t smoke my joint. I ain’t going out like that” at the start of the group’s second song of the night, rather than waiting for the end of the performance as the rest of the band had planned.

“Instead of waiting ‘till the end, [Muggs] said ‘Well forget that, I’m doing it right now.’ And so it threw everything in motion off,” B-Real explained.

“It ruined the way we were supposed to do that,” he continued, “but the important part of it was that they caught Muggs smoking the joint. ‘They said I couldn’t smoke my joint. I ain’t going out like that.’ Boom, and that became everything.”

Despite reportedly being banned for more than 30 years, B-Real expressed hope that Cypress Hill will return to SNL one day.

“It would be awesome to go back and do it again, because I mean we love Saturday Night Live. We love Lorne Michaels. We love the whole culture of Saturday Night Live. So if we aren’t banned, we’d love to come back. And if we are banned, we’d like to be unbanned and come back. Because since then marijuana has become legal in many places and some of their sketches have been cannabis related, so I don’t see why not.”

Cypress Hill’s B-Real on The Tuna on Toast Podcast With Stryker