Cypress Hill - Illusions

What this video is

Released in February 1996, 'Illusions' arrived at the peak of Cypress Hill's commercial and artistic influence following III: Temples of Boom (1995), which reached #3 on the Billboard 200. The single represented a marked stylistic divergence for the group — described by critic James Masterton as 'more laid back than anything they have ever released before, so much so that it is almost ambient in tone.' The video's…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of psychedelic West Coast hip-hop visual language. The video's near-static, film-grain-inflected, high-saturation-in-darkness aesthetic prefigures later mood-driven rap visuals. It also documents McG's early music video style before his crossover to blockbuster filmmaking, and…

The director

Born August 9, 1968 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. McG began his career directing music videos and producing albums, forming G Recordings in 1993. His work on the first three Korn music videos led to a stint with Cypress Hill. He accumulated over fifty music video…