Cypress Hill fulfil a Simpsons prophecy nearly 30 years in the making

It was back in 1996 when an episode of The Simpsons, titled ‘Homerpalooza’, featured a joke where Cypress Hill assumed they had mistakenly booked the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO).

Cypress Hill featured in 'Homerpalooza'. Credit: 20thCentFox/Everett/Shutterstock

Tonight, that joke will come true as the LSO will be showcasing their lauded crescendos while playing the trio’s acclaimed Black Sunday album, which include some of their most iconic tracks, from ‘Insane in the Brain’ to ‘I Wanna Get High’.

"It's been something that we've talked about for many years since the Simpsons episode first aired," B-Real, aka Louis Mario Freese, told the BBC. "So it's very special for us. And it's coming off the heels of our 30th anniversary for our Black Sunday album."

He added: “We salute the Simpsons because if they had not written that episode, we probably wouldn’t be doing this.”

After years of pressure from their fanbase, the American hip hop outfit reached out to the LSO via social media and a deal was struck. Cypress Hill deemed the opportunity to perform the Royal Albert “one of those checklist moments.”

In The Simpsons episode, Homer tries to impress Bart and Lisa by attending the Hullabalooza music festival - a riff on the Lollapalooza music festival held in Chicago - and hanging out with ‘90s rap and rock stars, including Cypress Hill, Sonic Youth and The Smashing Pumpkins.

In the episode, Cypress Hill accidentally perform alongside the London Symphony Orchestra which was originally booked for Peter Frampton's performance, after a mixup due to their last minute arrival. This is followed by a rendition of ‘Insane in the Brain’, complete with the classic orchestral backing.

The joke’s fulfilment continues the long-running mystery of The Simpsons foresight, having accurately predicted several real-life events many years in the future. For instance, in a March 2000 episode, Bart is shown a vision of the future in which his sister Lisa is inaugurated as the US president and declares: “We’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.” Mind you, this was a full 16 years before Trump became president.

Today, the crystal-gazing Simpsons will fulfil yet another prediction - and a far less harrowing omen at that - once the London Symphony Orchestra join Cypress Hill onstage.

As pioneers of the West Coast hip hop scene in the 1990s, Cypress Hill have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide. Their out-of-the-box artistry has blazed endless trails for the next generation of artists with their cutting-edge blend of hip hop, rock, metal, punk, reggae and electronic music.