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Critical Beatdown is the debut by American group , released on October 4, 1988, by . Production for the album was handled primarily by the group's rapper and producer , who employed an as the album's main instrument. have noted the album for its innovative production, -based , self-assertive themes, ingenious lyricism, and complex rhyme patterns.

Although it modestly upon its release, Critical Beatdown has since been acclaimed by critics as a classic album of and aesthetic. The album's abstract rhymes in strange laid on top of sampling experiments proved widely influential, from to to several generations of artists. Critical Beatdown was reissued by in 2004, with additional tracks.

Background

Before forming as a group, Ultramagnetic MCs members , , DJ Moe Love (Maurice Smith), and (Trevor Randolph) from were for the and People's Choice crews. They recorded a , "Space Groove", in 1984 and released their first "To Give You Love" in 1986. Other singles, including "Space Groove" and "Something Else", became popular at and earned the group notice in the underground music scene, eventually leading to the group's signing with dance-oriented record label .

The group made a stylistic breakthrough with their subsequent 1986 single "Ego Trippin'". The song boasted dense, minimalist production, featuring and a drum from ' "", and erratic lyricism by Ced-Gee and Kool Keith. The group's 1987 single "Funky" showcased Ced-Gee expanding on his production style, incorporating a piano sample from "" by . Before the release of Critical Beatdown, he contributed to production on albums such as (1987) by and (1987) by .

The dynamic, choppy production on Critical Beatdown was handled primarily by Ced-Gee, who used an . His sampling of early recordings by , particularly their guitar and vocal parts, added to the music's abrasive, -oriented sound and exemplified the growing popularity of such sampling sources in hip hop at the time. Along with samples of Brown's music, the production utilized from commonly sampled sources such as ' 1973 song "". In the second edition of The Rough Guide to Hip Hop (2005), music journalist notes its music's energy as reminiscent of and writes of the album's musical significance, "It may have been a stunning explosion of early sampling technology, but Critical Beatdown remains a devstating album even in an age of 32-bit samplers and -intensive software." He also views that the technological limitations of using such a sampler added to the album's style, making the music "rawer, more immediate, and more febrile, like a raw nerve."

team has cited the album as a major influence on their production for 's 1988 album . Music journalist writes that Ced-Gee "pushe[d] technology to its early limits, providing sonics that are less bassy and more heavy than most of their contemporaries." Shapiro dubs it one of the greatest hip hop albums and comments on its musical legacy, "Recorded at a time before 'street' and 'experimental' were mutually exclusive terms, it ushered in hip-hop's sampladelic golden age and laid the foundation for several generations of underground rap."

Lyrics

Kool Keith's and Ced-Gee's lyrics on the album are characterized by abstract , narrative style, and terminology. The Anthology of Rap, published by , makes note of such terminology in Ced-Gee's lyricism on the album's 1986 single "Ego Trippin'", particularly the lines "Usin' frequencies and data, I am / Leaving revolutions turning, emerging chemistry / With the precise implications, achieved adversively". Kool Keith's rhymes are manic and expressed in a pace. His lyrics on "Ego Trippin'" also criticize the musical aesthetic of artists at the time: "They use the simple back and forth, the same old rhythm / That a baby can pick up and join right with them / But their rhymes are pathetic, they think they copasetic / Using terms, at least not poetic".

Critical reception Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRating9/109.7/109/104.5/5

editor Stanton Swihart praised the album's production as "forward-looking" and called it "an undeniable hip-hop classic. One of the finest rap albums from the mid- to late-'80s '' in hip-hop." He noted the "lyrical invention" of Kool Keith's and Ced-Gee's respective styles, adding that "Somewhere in the nexus between the two stylistic extremes, brilliant music emanated. Critical Beatdown maintains all its sharpness and every ounce of its power, and it has not aged one second since 1988." journalist called it "an amazing debut" and complimented Kool Keith's "shifty rhyme patterns". 's Alex Linhardt called it "a flawless album - one that stands tall today as one of 's most ageless," lauding Kool Keith's "lyrical ingenuity" and citing Ced-Gee as "the source of the album's most insane, digitalk-quantum gibberish, spouting lines. They should be studied in seminars alongside general relativity." Linhardt attributed its music's "surging psychosis" to DJ Moe Love's and Ced-Gee's dense sampling, particularly his arrangement of vocal samples, writing that they "are ingrained in the very fabric of the beat, concealed and crippled amidst the relentlessly fuzzing bass. And like most great rap albums, many of them come from the patron saint of yelps, , and flurry and flux with such abstraction and chaos that they make the beats feel deceptively fast-paced."

stated in a retrospective review, "full of scratch-tastic heavy beat, gold plated hip hop which manages to combine the minimalist ground-breaking sounds with the show-no-mercy aural assault of the then-emerging Public Enemy." called it "a classic." 's Louis Arp noted the group's sound as "developed solely around the " and stated, "Critical Beatdown '​s notoriety as one of hip-hop's first copyright offenders is more than slightly impressive ... Those , the lyrics and the all around unique feel of the album make for some innovating hip-hop." Arp commented that the album "marks a sign of hip-hop's early burgeoning creative maturity" and praised Ced-Gee's "method of chopping up samples, rather than simply looping them like most of his contemporaries did, essentially changed the way the producer approached the hip-hop beat". writer Peter Relic cited it as the group's "quintessential release." , writing in the , said that it "served as a direct influence on the 'Daisy Age' rap of subsequent acts such as and ", while singles such as "Give the Drummer Some" showed the Ultramagnetic MC's "in their best light: call and response raps demonstrating individual members self-espoused talent in the best traditions of the old school." In (2004), journalist called the album "a bona fide classic of hip-hop's 'golden age' of the late '80s and early '90s, an album that was mostly ignored at the time but whose reputation has grown exponentially in the years since."

Track listing

All songs were written by , , Maurice Smith (DJ Moe Love), and .

#TitleProducer(s)Sample(s)Length1."Watch Me Now", "Gimme Some More" by "It's Just Begun" by . 4:402."Ease Back"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "" by The J.B.'s "Ease Back" and "Little Old Money Maker" by Line from speech by former US President , "Thirty seconds to respond..." 3:243."Ego Trippin' (Original 12" Version)"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "Synthetic Substitution" by Melvin Bliss 5:264."Moe Luv's Theme"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "Pussyfooter" by Jackie Robinson "Give it to You" by 2:145."Kool Keith Housing Things"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "Ride Sally Ride" by "Givin' up Food for Funk" by 3:156."Travelling at the Speed of Thought (Remix)"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "See You Later" by Fresh "" by 1:517."Feelin' It"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "Ride Sally Ride" by "Uphill Peace of Mind" by Kid Dynamite "" by 3:318."One Minute Less"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs——1:589."Ain't It Good to You"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs——3:3310."Funky (Remix)"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs——3:4011."Give the Drummer Some" "There Was a Time" by with the Dee Felice Trio "" by James Brown "" by James Brown "The Grunt" by The J.B.'s 3:4312."Break North"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs Dialogue from the 1977 film 3:2413."Critical Beatdown"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "If You Don't Get It the First Time, Back Up" by & 3:4214."When I Burn"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "Cookies" by Brother Soul "Rock Creek Park" by the "Funky" by 2:3215."Ced-Gee (Delta Force One)"Ced-Gee, Ultramagnetic MCs "Nautilus" by "Feelin' It" by 2:49