Although Cypress Hill brought De La Soul and the Pharcyde along for last year’s O Canadabis tour, it felt like a glitch in the Matrix, as the L.A. hip-hop legends have spent the better part of the past few decades planting their flag squarely in the rock world.
In the midst of their 2026 tour, with alt‑rockers the Urge on board, and hitting Ottawa for the first time since supporting Slipknot in 2022, it makes perfect sense to pair up Cypress Hill with Limp Bizkit to close off the second night of the city’s sprawling nine‑day Bluesfest at LeBreton Flats.
The grounds were already swarming with baseball‑cap fanatics and questionably dressed and tattooed nu‑metalheads when original members B‑Real and Sen Dog were greeted by waves of applause and clouds of smoke. Joined by longtime bandmate Eric Bobo (son of Latin‑jazz legend Willie Bobo) on percussion, and touring turntablist DJ Lord, formerly of ’00s‑era Public Enemy, the quartet came in hot from moment one.
Transforming their debut single “How I Could Just Kill a Man” into a raucous rock anthem, Lord delivered a blistering turntable solo, while Sen shouted out the chorus à la Zack de la Rocha. Moving into “Hand on the Pump,” where B‑Real led the crowd through the “la la la la” call‑and‑response, the group kept the momentum high.
Sticking strictly to hits from the ’90s for the first third of the set with “When the Shit Goes Down” and “Tequila Sunrise,” Lord would drop a nod to Bobo’s former collaborators, the Beastie Boys, by working a sample of “So What’chu Want” into “A to the K.”
Dedicating 1996’s III: Temples of Boom single, the recent TikTok‑revived favourite “Illusions,” to the newcomers in the crowd, the group’s iconic 15‑foot, joint‑holding skeleton began to rise on stage. As B-Real, Sen Dog and Lord lit up, they moved into their most weed-friendly numbers: “I Wanna Get High,” “Hits from the Bong,” and the namesake of their inflatable mascot, “Dr. Greenthumb.”
As the two MCs left the stage, Lord and Bobo would rip through a 10-minute instrumental, incredibly outmaneuvering each other with incredible speed and dexterity.
Returning to the stage to play “Wacha Trucha,” a cut from their upcoming Spanish‑language LP Dios Bendiga, Cypress Hill shifted into a rock‑heavy stretch. This included Skull & Bones singles “Can’t Get the Best of Me” and “(Rock) Superstar,” with the latter melding into a sample of Slayer’s “Angel of Death.” Their blistering take on “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That” found B‑Real hopping behind the kit to rock out alongside Bobo.
Reviving a live staple from B‑Real’s short‑lived supergroup Prophets of Rage, the project that had him and Public Enemy’s Chuck D fronting a de la Rocha‑less Rage Against the Machine, the band tore into a ferocious cover of “Bombtrack.” Riding off the evening’s mounting energy, the quartet moved into their immortal hit “Insane in the Brain,” which saw the crowd jumping and flailing in place to the song’s rubbery beat, created by the group’s on-again/off-again studio producer DJ Muggs.
Concluding their hour‑long set with an abbreviated blast of House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” built on another Muggs‑crafted beat, Cypress Hill looked perfectly at home among the metalheads, stoners and bikers who showed up in full force. After all, this hip‑hop crew was the best rock band to grace the festival stage that evening.