A ‘Simpsons’ Joke Comes True for Cypress Hill

There is now an answer to at least one chicken-or-egg “Simpsons” prophesy: The episode did come first.

But then, 28 years later, came the concert.

“Simpsons” fans mixed with Cypress Hill fans on Wednesday at the Royal Albert Hall, a stately concert venue in the English capital, for a one-night-only collaboration between the London Symphony Orchestra and the American hip-hop group. Some were there for beats. Others had come to see a joke become a reality.

“We came for the meme,” said Nick Brady, 30, who was with his brother. “We stayed for the music.”

The evening had been foretold by a 1996 episode of “The Simpsons,” called “Homerpalooza,” in which Homer Simpson takes his family to a festival and then falls in with the stars.

In the TV show, a festival employee arrives in a backstage area flanked by tuxedo-clad musicians. “Who is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra?” he calls out. “Somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra … possibly while high? Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction.”

The hip-hop group huddles, whispering. Then, thinking fast, one says: “Uh, yeah, yeah, we think we did. Uh, do you know ‘Insane In The Brain’?”

“We mostly know classical,” one orchestra member says, in a posh British accent. “But we could give it a shot.”