Backspin: Ultramagnetic MC’s — Critical Beatdown (1988)
Is Ultramagnetic’s dynamic debut hip-hop’s most overlooked masterpiece? (90/100)
Originally published 7/16/22 on Medium.
If there’s one rap group who descended upon Earth from another planet, smart money would be on Ultramagnetic MC’s. Like Superman, they approximated the facade of their adopted world reasonably well. They rocked the requisite attire; the designer warm-ups and rope chains. They spoke the language of the day, ostentatiously boasting of microphone prowess and general flyness. They used the same tools — an SP 1200 drum machine, a stack of vintage vinyl, and their own vocal acumen.
But like Clark Kent roaming the halls of the Daily Planet, something about the musical output of Kool Keith, Ced Gee, Moe Love, and TR Love was a little askew. Open spaces amid the spare drum breaks in which the average MC would nestle were filled with aggressive counter rhythms and filtered samples. Horn samples exploded in sharp stabs, providing punctuation rather than melody. Bars broke abruptly, leaving the listener hanging for resolution, which often came in the form of an arcane reference or screwball pronunciation. Who from the planet Earth would enunciate “pattern” as “patter-en” and rhyme it with “Satur-en,” all by way of inviting you climb their “ladder and”?
The group’s style is abrasive. It’s discombobulating. While all the individual components feel familiar, the finished product is like nothing else you’ve heard. It embodies the essence of hip-hop, while seemingly deconstructing hip-hop. Perhaps that’s why in the more than three decades since its 1988 release, the Ultramagnetic MC’s ingenious debut, Critical Beatdown, has become hip-hop’s most overlooked masterpiece.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. While it took Ultra a few tries to break through, when they finally hit with “Ego Trippin’” in late 1986, they packed a wallop. After DJ Moe Luv’s extended scratching builds anticipation, the weighty drum break from Melvin Bliss’s “Synthetic Substitution” grabs you by the collar and shakes you like like a dusty floor rug.
Before listeners can fully acclimate to the sonic assault, the verbal shots come fast and furious. Kool Keith and Ced Gee direct their fire squarely at hip-hop’s reigning kings, Run-DMC, and the year’s party rocking anthem, “Peter Piper.” Where “Peter Piper” drew its power from the already ubiquitous “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” break and Run and D’s clever contortions of nursery rhyme lore, “Ego Trippin’” offers a sonic collage of previously untapped source material. In addition to their introduction of the now pervasive “Synthetic Bliss” to the crate digging lexicon, Ced Gee’s layered production also pioneered the soon-to-be boiler plate sampling of James Brown’s piercing vocal ticks as a form of instrumentation in themselves.
As for Run-DMC’s playful lyricism, well, suffice it to say Kool Keith and Ced Gee were not impressed. Keith lets loose:
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 copacetic
Using nursery terms, at least not poetic
On a educated base, intelligent wise
As the record just turn, you learn, plus burn
By the flame of the lyrics which cooks the human brain
Providing overheating knowledge, by means causing pain
Like a migraine headache, your cells start to melt
While the Technics spin, the wax is on the felt
Motivating clockwise the more you realize
Moe Love’s moving steady, by most, with Everready
Like a battery, charged, I’m worth the alkaline
Yes the mystery to solve, so seek and define
These words I’ve given, extremely knowledge driven
With a Datsun, a Maxima to glide
Yes, the wizard Kool Keith, and I’m sportin’ my ride
When you come at the kings, you best not miss, and Ultra did not. Both sonically and lyrically, “Ego Trippin’” was every bit as dope as “Peter Piper” and far more innovative. Kool Keith’s entire second verse eschews rhymed couplets all together, relying completely on his off-kilter vocal syncopation to provide the patterns.
The rest of Critical Beatdown, released in hip-hop’s watershed year of 1988, not only follows through on the single’s fierce embrace of innovation, but builds upon it. “Watch Me Now” unleashes an orgy of choice samples, pulling from no less than six funk, soul, and jazz burners. The fluidity of the soundscape gives the track a live wire energy that seems to inspire Keith to new heights of asymmetric lyricism.
Kool Keith is the anti-Rakim. Where the R rhymes like a metronome, deploying every syllable with meticulous precision, Keith is a Tasmanian Devil. He bounces in and out of pockets like a pinball, hinting at rhyme schemes only to veer abruptly into a verbal flight of fancy.
“Ease Back” makes masterful use of the yin and yang tension between Keith’s madcap energy and Ced Gee’s baritoned bombast, as the two MCs trade boasts atop the squealing saxophone glissando from The J.B.’s “The Grunt,” popularized on Public Enemy’s “Terminator X on the Edge of Panic.” As on many of the later recorded tracks, Ced Gee is clearly taking vocal cues from PE’s frontman, Chuck D, deploying pregnant pauses to let the authoritative heft of his voice resonate and hold listeners rapt in wait for his next line.
According to Chuck D, Critical Beatdown and PE’s legendary It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (as well as Stetsasonic’s In Full Gear) had their genesis on the same tour bus, as the groups traversed the country together in 1987. The mutual influence is palpable on both records, as each group re-imaged the scope and intricacy of sampling. But where PE stacked samples to create a dense wall of sound, Ced Gee surgically deploys them in dialogue with one another, giving Critical Beatdown a hyperactive dynamism. Like the MCs, the beats never stay settled in one groove for too long.
“Feelin’ It” is stitched together like a tapestry. Jittery percussions from Rick James’ “Fire It Up” enliven Ced Gee’s blunt drum loop with a propulsive bounce. Horn stabs from Mongo Santamaria’s “Cold Sweat” punch through intermittently to add color. A filtered horn sample cuts the abrasiveness with leisurely warmth, as a vocal snippet from Kid Dynamite erupts into a jubilant culmination.
“Ain’t It Good to You” picks up the pace, as the MCs unleash rapid fire rhymes over the double time drums from Manzel’s “Jump Street.” The esoteric synths cribbed from the same track imbue the song with a whimsical abstraction befitting the off-kilter dervish of Keith and Ced’s rhymes and unconventional boasts.
The multiple drum samples propelling “Give the Drummer Some” into a funkafied frenzy feel like an actual band at work, building and riffing off one another. Both emcees feed off the freewheeling energy, with Ced Gee deploying his halting delivery to maximum effect.
Well I’m Ced
The Rhyming Force Delta
When I enter, you best take shelter
Cuz I’m dope, and yes I will melt a
Anyone who tried to even felt a
Emotion, or thought that they could hang with me
I cut you up, because you are my enemy
On my stage, interfering with my radius
So step back, cuz I’mma start to spray with this
Can, of Raid Spray
If you’re a germ, filthy like AIDS, I’ll
Clean, you up with heat
Vapors, scrubbin’ and scrubbin’
Like a mistake on paper, I’m rubbin’
Erasin’ you out like some ink
Cuz you dirty, your rhymes are stink
Critical Beatdown’s unrelenting tempo and intensity are a bit of a double edged sword. The sonic barrage makes it a visceral listening experience, nearly impossible to absorb passively. At over 50 minutes, it can also be draining, perhaps even more so to the modern ear trained to the ambient “vibes” of airy melodies.
An under appreciated component of Nation of Millions is its strategic dialing back of PE’s trademark “noise” on “Don’t Believe the Hype” and “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” to achieve a sense of sonic pacing. Critical Beatdown’s only “breathers” come in the form of the truncated “One Minute Less” and the hypnotic “Ced-Gee (Delta Force One).” At less than 2 minutes, the former is a glorified interlude. The latter closes the album, giving it the feel of a cool down rather than a much needed change up.
More than three decades after its release, Critical Beatdown occupies a unique space in the hip-hop pantheon. Its impact far outstrips its notoriety. Not only did Ultra introduce countless samples that went onto becomes staples, they also introduced sampling techniques that would contribute to the sonic template of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Their abstract rhymes are arguably the genesis for a specific subset of alternative backpack rap that maintains a niche in hip-hop’s underground ecosystem to this day.
Yet, it is rarely mentioned in the endless discussions of hip-hop’s definitive albums. Even more rarely are the singles sprinkled into old school DJ mixes or Golden Era playlists on your favorite streaming services. Even “Ego Trippin’,” every bit the watershed that Eric B. & Rakim’s “My Melody” or Boogie Down Productions’ “Poetry” were in ’86, has largely disappeared from the lexicon over time.
Perhaps that’s the curse of being truly different. With time, the innovations of visionaries tend to get coopted and incorporated into a more accessible paradigm, rendering the originators, with their confounding idiosyncrasies, disposable.
Ultramagnetic MC’s may or may not be from another planet, but they never fit any paradigm. That’s precisely why Critical Beatdown remains one of hip-hop’s most fascinatingly singular albums.
By the Numbers
Production: 10
Lyrics (how the words are put together): 9
Delivery & Flow: 9
Content (Substance): 8.5
Cohesiveness: 9.5
Consistency: 9.5
Originality: 10
Listenability: 8
Impact/Influence: 10
Longevity: 6.5
Total — 90
Backspin is a look back at the albums that shaped and defined hip-hop. It explores what made them resonate, the impact they had on the culture, and where they fit in today’s ever-expanding hip-hop canon.