Cypress Hill are a Latin Hip Hop group from California. Rusko is a dubstep producer from Leeds.
Naturally they collaborated to produce an E.P., with this particular song featuring Damian Marley, a Dancehall artist from Jamaica…
“Can’t Keep Me Down” is a reggae infused stomper of a tune, with a metallic bassline dominating proceedings, but still allowing plenty of room for Cypress Hill’s verses and Damian Marley’s chorus.
Cypress Hill’s rapping is dominated by themes of weed smoking and violence. It’s slightly madcap, but great fun. I don’t think they’ll win many awards for the deepness of their content here, but the delivery is undeniably excellent, and the song is better off for their spitting on it.
Damian Marley. Arguably the only Marley child to truly escape the massive shadow cast by Bob, he sings an anthemic chorus here, which gives the song a fine sing a long vocal hook that is unusual for this kind of music. It’s a clever line as well; only God is above him, but he is firmly rooted in the streets.
Rusko’s production here is a lot less bombastic than some of what he often does. He was traditionally one of the dubstep producers with strong sense of the dub sound, but also one of the ones responsible for dubstep’s americanised brostep iteration. Nevertheless, this song is bouncy and energetic, with a strong skanking feel to it. A fine job.
The song was released in 2012 on the Cypress X Rusko E.P.
Wicked stuff!