<\/p>\n
In the latest episode of \u201cThe De Los Podcast,<\/a>\u201d Cypress Hill MC Sen Dog spoke with hosts Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito about growing up in L.A. as a Black Latino, taking up space in hip-hop and his upcoming documentary about his Cuban heritage titled \u201cMi Familia: Sen Dog and the American Dream.\u201d<\/p>\n Proudly donning the label of refugee, Sen Dog was born in the Cuban city of Pinar del R\u00edo. His family eventually relocated to the L.A. area in his youth, settling in South Gate. Growing up in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood, the Grammy-nominated rapper found himself in a unique social position as a member of both communities.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a Black Latino at that time was way different because some of the Black kids didn\u2019t want to talk to us because we didn\u2019t know English,\u201d Sen Dog said. \u201cAnd some of the Mexican kids would come up to us and say stuff in Mexican-style Spanish and we didn\u2019t understand that … so there was a lot of confusion going on.\u201d <\/p>\n But his in-between status and the richness of the culture that surrounded him growing up in the \u201870s and \u201880s helped to inform his musical taste. His musically inclined family had introduced him to Cuban megastars like Celia Cruz<\/a> and Tito Puente<\/a>, television commercials exposed him to artists like Elvis Presley, and programs like \u201cAmerican Bandstand\u201d and \u201cSoul Train\u201d helped familiarize him with pop music plus soul, funk and R&B. He was then introduced to rock and metal music by his high school classmate, fellow Cuban and future Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. <\/p>\n Sen Dog on \u201cThe De Los Podcast.\u201d <\/p>\n (L.A. Times Studios)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n \u201cDepending on what crowd I hung out with, that [dictated] what we were listening to that day,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I hung out with the cholos, we\u2019re playing oldies. If I hung out with the brothers, funk music was on. If I\u2019m with the football players and the skaters, we\u2019re listening to punk rock or heavy metal.\u201d <\/p>\n Sen Dog also touched on what it was like being Latino in the \u201880s and \u201890s hip-hop scene. <\/p>\n \u201cThere was a little bit of a period where people had to guess who we are or what we were,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it ever held us back from anything because first and foremost we wanted to be a good hip-hop group like the guys we were influenced by. … We just went about our business, not realizing race had anything to do with it, but it really did.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cInsane in the Brain\u201d artist capped off the conversation by touching on his latest project, a documentary that he\u2019s been working on titled \u201cMi Familia: Sen Dog and the American Dream,\u201d which delves into the rapper\u2019s Cuban heritage. The film follows Sen Dog and his brother Mellow Man Ace as they travel between L.A. and their hometown in Cuba.<\/p>\n \u201cIt tells the story of great musicians that our family has in Cuba and around the world,\u201d Sen Dog said. \u201cBeing an immigrant … you have to be proud enough to tell your story. You\u2019re going to uplift someone or open somebody\u2019s mind up with your own story. I never thought I had a story to tell because I never stopped to think about it.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the latest episode of \u201cThe De Los Podcast,\u201d Cypress Hill MC Sen Dog spoke with hosts Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito about growing up in L.A. as a Black Latino, taking up space in hip-hop and his upcoming documentary about his Cuban heritage titled \u201cMi Familia: Sen Dog and the American Dream.\u201d Proudly donning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2452837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Sen-Dog-discusses-new-Cuba-doc-LA-upbringing-and-music.com2F3f2F9f2F43c09e42482ea129cb45a0da.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452838,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452836\/revisions\/2452838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}