If you're a consistent reader of The BoomBox, you already know that 'Rise Up,' Cypress Hill's eighth studio album, is on the way April 20. This is their first album on the Snoop Dogg-helmed Priority Records, where they were the first signing. It's also their first after a roughly six-year hiatus from the game. Always ones to take their time and try to do something new, the act's lead rapper B-Real explained the process of returning to the scene as a legendary veteran.

"We usually take two or three years to get comfortable with the direction of where we're gonna take it," B-Real told The BoomBox. "That's why we had the six year layoff, because you know, the first three years were solo and then to get everything in place for Cypress Hill recordings, we just try to take our time and get comfortable. It gives people time to miss what Cypress Hill is as far as music and a movement and all that stuff. We don't want to over saturate like people usually do. You know, it let us see that people still wanted to hear what we have going on."

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One of the defining characteristics of the new record is a diverse series of collaborations. As B-Real tells it, the core Cypress Hill unit crafted the bulk of the album and then brought in some like-minded peers such as Rage Against the Machine shredder Tom Morello (on two tracks) and Daron Malakian from System of a Down.

"Well, we were doing all the recording first amongst ourselves," he explained. "We did the bulk of it, but after we got halfway, we said, 'Let's try some different things.' We thought we should try collaborating with Tom Morello, which was a natural fit. We reached out and he gave us two great tracks. After that, we thought, 'Well, shoot, Tom gave us great stuff, so let's reach out to more people to get something raw like that.' That's when we reached out to Daron from System of a Down. We got our stuff out of the way and then went to the other guys to see what kind of vibe they could add to what we already had going on."

Keep an eye on The BoomBox for more of our exclusive interviews with both B-Real and Sen Dog from Cypress Hill. Also, keep an eye on B-Real's weekly Real Talk video blog, which we're running up until the album release.

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