Senen Reyes (born November 20, 1965), also known by his stage name Sen Dog, is a Cuban-American rapper who is best known as a member of the
hip hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
group
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill is an American Hip hop music, hip hop group formed in South Gate, California in 1988. One of the first Latin groups to gain mainstream recognition in hip hop, they have sold over 20 million albums worldwide, and have obtained multi ...
and as the lead vocalist for the nu metal band
Powerflo. He has nurtured a solo career in addition to his work with Cypress Hill and Powerflo, and is the lead vocalist for
rap rock
Rap rock is a music genre that developed from the early to mid-1980s, when hip hop DJs incorporated rock records into their routines and rappers began incorporating original and sampled rock instrumentation into hip hop music. Rap rock is co ...
band
SX-10.
Career
Sen Dog is a member of the rap group Cypress Hill, with whom he has had multiple albums in the Top 10 on the
Billboard 200
The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a rec ...
album chart (including the No. 1 album
Black Sunday). Some of the most well-known songs that he performs with Cypress Hill are "How I Could Just Kill a Man", "(Rap/Rock) Superstar" and "Insane in the Brain".
In the late 1990s, Sen Dog took a leave of absence from Cypress Hill to develop a new rock/rap band called SX-10. He wanted the band to have a funk sound with Latin influences. SX-10 released an album in 2000 called ''
Mad Dog American''.
In 1996, he performed "Quien Es Ese Negro (Who's That Black Dude)" with
Mellow Man Ace
Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (born April 12, 1967), better known as Mellow Man Ace, is a Cuban-American rapper known for bilingual delivery and novelty rhymes. He was born in Cuba and moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of four.
Early life ...
, MC Skeey, Mr. Rico, and DJ Rif for the
AIDS
The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
benefit album, ''
Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin'', produced by the
Red Hot Organization
''Red Hot Organization'' (RHO) is a non-profit, 501(c) 3, international organization with goals to promote diversity through equal access to healthcare through pop culture.
Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors ...
.
On September 30, 2008, Sen Dog released his first solo album, ''
Diary of a Mad Dog'', seventeen years after the release of the first Cypress Hill album. In an interview with HipHopDX, Sen Dog described how he felt that he had more control and could talk about personal aspects of his life with this album. He said, "With Cypress, I never really felt that comfortable to put personal aspects of my life into the music. It feels good to have the opportunity to be the quarterback, if you want to call it that, in the studio, and be creative. I definitely found that I had more in me than I thought I did." He said that he wanted to have fun with this album and that he has tried out a lot of different types of music but had no agenda for the type of music on ''Diary of a Mad Dog''. "We've done the whole dark, morbid thing. The rock n' roll crossover; just a lot of things. I'm not going to have an agenda on this; I'm going to jam and record whatever is fun to me."
Personal life
In the 1980s, Sen Dog was affiliated with a
Bloods
The Bloods are a primarily African Americans, African American street gang which was founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for Crips–Bloods gang war, its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn ...
gang set known as "Neighborhood Family", and later introduced his younger cousin and later bandmate,
B-Real
Louis Mario Freese (born June 2, 1970), known by his stage name B-Real, is an American rapper. Since 1991, he has been one of two lead rappers in the hip hop group Cypress Hill, along with Sen Dog. He has also been a part of the rap metal ban ...
into the set before B-Real was shot in the lung in 1988. Sen Dog is known to be an avid
marijuana
Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...
smoker and Cypress Hill has made songs about the use of marijuana, including “ Stoned is the Way of the Walk”, "Legalize it", "I Wanna Get High" and "Hits from the Bong". Sen Dog gave B-Real his first joint when Sen Dog was 17 years old. In an interview with ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' Sen Dog said, "Pot got a bad name with the flower children of the '60s, and then all these hard drugs came in, and people started dropping like flies. Today, people want to get high on something that's not going to give them a heart attack, like
speed
In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a non-negative scalar quantity. Intro ...
or
crack."
Reyes and former
Slayer
Slayer is an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California, formed in 1981 by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, drummer Dave Lombardo and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya. Slayer's fast and aggressive musical style made them ...
drummer
Dave Lombardo are childhood friends who attended the same high school.
He is the older brother of
Mellow Man Ace
Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (born April 12, 1967), better known as Mellow Man Ace, is a Cuban-American rapper known for bilingual delivery and novelty rhymes. He was born in Cuba and moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of four.
Early life ...
(born Ulpiano Sergio Reyes). Reyes currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Discography
Solo
*''
Diary of a Mad Dog'' (2008)
With Cypress Hill
* ''
Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill is an American Hip hop music, hip hop group formed in South Gate, California in 1988. One of the first Latin groups to gain mainstream recognition in hip hop, they have sold over 20 million albums worldwide, and have obtained multi ...
'' (1991)
* ''
Black Sunday'' (1993)
* ''
III: Temples of Boom'' (1995)
* ''
IV'' (1998)
* ''
Skull & Bones'' (2000)
* ''
Stoned Raiders
''Stoned Raiders'' is the sixth studio album by American hip hop group Cypress Hill, released on December 4, 2001, by Columbia Records.
Background
This album is best known for its two singles: "Trouble" and "Lowrider". The song "Kronologik" al ...
'' (2001)
* ''
Till Death Do Us Part'' (2004)
* ''
Rise Up'' (2010)
* ''
Cypress x Rusko'' (2012)
* ''
Elephants on Acid'' (2018)
* ''
Back in Black
''Back in Black'' is the seventh studio album by Australian rock band AC/DC, released on 25 July 1980, by Albert Productions and Atlantic Records. It was the band's first album to feature Brian Johnson as lead singer, following the death of the ...
'' (2022)
With SX-10
*''
Mad Dog American'' (2000)
*''Temple of Tolerance (Unreleased)'' (2006)
*''EP'' (2008)
With The Reyes Brothers
* ''
Ghetto Therapy'' (2006)
With Powerflo
* ''
Powerflo'' (2017)
*''Bring That Shit Back!'' (2018)
*''Gorilla Warfare'' (2024)
Guest appearances
Mixtapes
*''Collabo Killa (2000)''
*''Fat Joints Volume 1 (2007)''
See also
*
List of Cuban Americans
*
Afro-Latin Americans
References
External links
Official Cypress Hill website*
{{Authority control
1965 births
Living people
Musicians from Havana
Cuban people of African descent
American male rappers
American heavy metal singers
American musicians of Cuban descent
Bloods
Cypress Hill members
Hispanic and Latino American rappers
American rap rock musicians
Rappers from Los Angeles
Gangsta rappers
Nu metal singers
21st-century American rappers
Powerflo members
American people of Afro-Cuban descent