Chicagoland’s premier chicano rap group Los Marijuanos has enjoyed a close relationship with its Los Angeles area contemporaries in the Cypress Hill camp for several years dating back to the late 1990s. Cypress Hill’s admiration was apparently so deep for Los Marijuanos that a live band side group the West Coast rappers are members of appropriated the Chicagoland act’s nom de mic without permission.
Acknowledging that the Chicagoland rap has applied for a trademark to the Los Marijuanos name, its manager and label head at Wicked Entertainment Mickey “Sleepy” Elahi revealed in a telephone interview Thursday that the label has sent a cease and desist order forbidding the other act to use the name to Cypress’s attorney Paul Rosenberg, who also represents Eminem.
The Los Marijuanos name was attached to the Southern California group—also comprising the rock groups Deftones, Jane’s Addiction, Methods of Mayhem, and Downset and mic-controllers Everlast and Mellow Man Ace, brother of Cypress Hill mic-controller Sen Dog—when a friend announced it under that nom de mic to rally more applause during a Jun. 11 gig at Club Vynyl in Hollywood, Sleepy said. Before the Chicagoland aired their concerns about the incident and ensuing confusion during a Friday broadcast of John Mancow’s show on Q101 FM, Los Marijuanos mic-controller and producer Pony Boy tempered speculation grounded in a sense of betrayal with a need for clear answers to amicably resolve the matter.
“Sen Dog said he had another name that he liked, and I think it was B-Real trying to scam,” Pony Boy said in a Thursday interview from his Gary, IN home. We’ve got them on video for our ‘smoke-umentary’ backstage saying they’re down with Los Marijuanos at the Allstate Arena when we did [a Dec. 9] concert with them, Twisted 7 and Everlast. On [the cover] of our new CD, I’m wearing Sen Dog’s new gear Latin Thug.
“So we’re going to move on this fast before we put an album out. We don’t want any trouble, we just want to know what’s going on.”
In the mid-1990s, Cypress Hill, led by B-Real, very publicly lowrated Ice Cube for allegedly lifting for his own album unpublished music from an in-progress album the group reportedly allowed the Westside Connection kingpin and his mic-controlling kinsmen ?. Before they subsided, the hostilies ranged from a recorded attack on Ice Cube as a faux ghetto tough to defending Common against Westside Connection’s vociferous attacks on Chicago-bred rapper out of the belief that “I Used To Love H.e.r.” was anti-West Coast. B-Real said the Cypress Hill and Ice Cube camps had considered themselves close before than incident.
Rosenberg could not be reached for comment on the Los Marijuanos matters.
MARK FITZGERALD ARMSTRONG
11706 SOUTH THROOP STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60643
markarmstrong62@aol.com
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