They might be more used to Rachmaninov and Brahms, but on Wednesday night the London Symphony Orchestra’s musicians will be showcasing their perfect crescendos while playing Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Brain.
The orchestra is making a Simpsons joke from 1996 finally a reality, by playing the US hip-hop trio Cypress Hill’s acclaimed Black Sunday album at the Royal Albert Hall.
The evening will riff on a joke featured in a Simpsons episode, in which Cypress Hill speculated that they had mistakenly booked the London Symphony Orchestra “possibly while high”.
After years of fan pressure, the group has struck a deal for a one-night performance in London, in which the LSO will perform its most famous songs, including Insane in the Brain and I Wanna Get High.
Considered pioneers of the West Coast hip-hop scene in the 1990s, Cypress Hill have sold more than 20m albums worldwide. Their hit Black Sunday album sold more than 3m copies in the US and spent a year in the UK charts.
B-Real (real name Louis Mario Freese) told the BBC: “It’s been something that we’ve talked about for many years since the Simpsons episode first aired. So it’s very special for us. And it’s coming off the heels of our 30th anniversary for our Black Sunday album.
“We’ve played a lot of historical venues throughout our career and stuff like that, but nothing as prestigious as this.”
B-Real added that Cypress Hill had always reached for experimental collaborations as “out-of-the-box artists”, including combining hip-hop with rock or metal or punk or reggae or electronic music.
He added: “We salute the Simpsons because if they had not written that episode, we probably wouldn’t be doing this.”
In the Simpsons episode, titled Homerpalooza, Homer tries to impress Bart and Lisa by going to the Hullabalooza music festival – a play on the Lollapalooza music festival held in Chicago – and hanging out with 1990s rap and rock stars including Cypress Hill and The Smashing Pumpkins.
In the episode, a crew member calls “somebody ordered”, adding “possibly while high … Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction”. This is followed by a rendition of Insane in the Brain, complete with the classic orchestral backing.
Cypress Hill have also invited the UK musician Peter Frampton, who features in the episode as the person trying to book the orchestra, although they are still waiting for a reply.
The LSO first violin and board vice-chair, Maxine Kwok, told the BBC that it was an important cultural reference and that “people are beyond excited at the idea of these diverse musicians mixing on the stage”.
She said: “Being a child of the 90s I remember the episode well.”
At rehearsals there have been cultural differences – for example, the LSO understood the word “glock” to mean the percussion instrument the glockenspiel, rather than a gun.
The Simpsons has previously predicted future events, including Trump’s presidency, a tiger attack on the Las Vegas magicians Siegfried and Roy, and the US beating Sweden to win its first Winter Olympic curling gold.
