Cypress Hill / Black Sunday (Radio Version) / 1993
I Wanna Get High
loose, boastful, mischievous
A celebratory ode to marijuana that doubles as a political jab, built on a hook so simple it functions almost like a chant. Cypress Hill layers boastful, dense slang about smoking technique over a relentless repeated refrain, turning the act of getting high into both ritual and provocation.
marijuana culture defiance of authority hedonism hip-hop braggadocio political satire
Who's speaking
A first-person narrator addressing an unnamed audience of fellow smokers, bragging about his technique and inviting listeners into the ritual; the voice is unreliable only in the sense that it's performative swagger rather than sincere confession.
What happens
The song doesn't tell a story so much as build a mood through accumulation: it opens with the chanted desire to get high, moves into verses detailing the mechanics and pleasures of smoking, takes a jab at a sitting president, then dissolves back into the chant and finally a bong-hit mantra that closes the track.
How it's built
The song is hook-heavy, bookended and interrupted by a four-line chanted refrain that functions like a chorus. Two dense verses sit between repetitions of the hook, and the track ends by replacing the hook with an even more stripped-down, almost onomatopoeic repetition, suggesting a descent into the high itself rather than a narrative resolution.
Section by section
Opening hook
The song announces its single desire immediately and without complication, functioning less as a thesis to be developed than as a chant that will recur and eventually take over the track.
First verse
The narrator boasts about his rolling technique and sensory command, using dense wordplay and slang to assert mastery over the ritual of smoking as much as pleasure in it.
Second verse
The verse shifts from technique to effect, comparing the drug's influence to a physical, almost oceanic force, while asserting its potency beyond recreational flippancy.73
Political jab
“Tell Bill Clinton to go and inhale”
This line pivots the song briefly toward satire, referencing the contemporaneous political controversy around drug admission and daring the establishment to join in rather than condemn, undercutting the moral authority of anti-drug rhetoric.
Closing bong-hit chant
The final section abandons verse structure almost entirely, stuttering through a single repeated phrase that mimics the act of inhaling itself, letting the song trail off into the very high it has been describing rather than concluding with a statement.
Craft
- anaphora
- The repeated opening phrase across the hook and the closing section creates a hypnotic, mantra-like quality that mimics the repetitive ritual of smoking.
- slang/argot
- Dense, insider vocabulary around smoking technique signals authenticity and in-group knowledge, rewarding listeners familiar with the culture while creating distance for outsiders.
- direct address/provocation
- Naming a real political figure and commanding him to partake is a satirical device that collapses the distance between street-level pleasure and institutional authority, mocking anti-drug political posturing.
- onomatopoeic repetition
- The closing section's fragmented, stuttering repetition of a phrase about bong hits mimics the physical rhythm of inhalation, letting form enact content.
Reading it
On its surface this is straightforward stoner-rap celebration, but the Clinton reference signals an awareness that smoking weed was also a political and generational marker in the early '90s, with the song implicitly mocking the hypocrisy of public figures who distance themselves from a practice the narrator treats as mundane and pleasurable. An alternative reading sees the whole track as pure sonic texture — the lyrics matter less than the chant's rhythmic function as a vehicle for a hook, with meaning secondary to groove and repetition.
Context
Released on Black Sunday in 1993, this track became one of Cypress Hill's signature songs and an anthem of stoner culture in hip-hop, arriving at a moment when the group's embrace of marijuana imagery was itself a statement of identity and rebellion, particularly notable given their status as one of the first prominent Latino acts in mainstream hip-hop. The Bill Clinton line references the real political moment when the then-candidate controversially claimed he 'didn't inhale' during marijuana use, a claim widely mocked.
Listen for
- the way the hook's repetition builds a trance-like insistence before the verses even start
- the density of smoking-specific slang packed into short bursts
- the tonal shift when the political reference appears amid otherwise apolitical bragging
- how the song dissolves into fragmented repetition by its end, mimicking the high it describes
About Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill is an American hip-hop group formed in South Gate, California in 1988. One of the first Latin American groups to gain mainstream recognition in hip-hop, they have sold over 20 million albums worldwide, and have obtained multi-platinum and RIAA platinum certifications.
1988 - present / United States
Full biography and catalogue