Critical Beatdown Free MP3, Song Download, Lyrics, Album Track List

Critical Beatdown

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Song	Lyrics	Save	Buy
PLAY QUEUE 1 Watch Me Now		save
PLAY QUEUE 2 Ease Back		save
PLAY QUEUE 3 Ego Trippin' (MC's Ultra Remix)		save
PLAY QUEUE 4 Moe Luv's Theme		save
PLAY QUEUE 5 Kool Keith Housing Things		save
PLAY QUEUE 6 Traveling At The Speed Of Thought (Remix)		save
PLAY QUEUE 7 Feelin' It		save
PLAY QUEUE 8 One Minute Less		save
PLAY QUEUE 9 Ain't It Good To You		save
PLAY QUEUE 10 Funky (Remix)		save
PLAY QUEUE 11 Give The Drummer Some		save
PLAY QUEUE 12 Break North		save
PLAY QUEUE 13 Critical Beatdown		save
PLAY QUEUE 14 When I Burn		save
PLAY QUEUE 15 Ced-gee (Delta Force One)		save

MOG Editorial Review

With the release of their debut album in 1988, Kool Keith and company released a bona fide classic that immediately one-upped not only the early stages of political rap, but producers relying heavily on samples as well. Though similar acts like EPMD were also digging for well-known samples at the time, Ultramagnetic MC's took their integration to a whole new level, with "Kool Keith Housing Things" sampling the J.B.'s into a perfect, unrecognizable groove, which it's followed by "Traveling at the Speed of Thought," a track that impossibly gives a hip-hop spin on Motorhead's "Louie, Louie" cover. Despite the sampling, however, it's also worth noting that their very own "Funky" would famously get sampled on 2Pac's "California Love." More importantly, Kool Keith's unconventional rhyming style and unique form of political hip-hop had its first proper outlet, which still feels like a revelation over two decades later.
AMG Review of Critical Beatdown

Stanton Swihart
All Music Guide

Besides being an undeniable hip-hop classic, the first album by the cult crew Ultramagnetic MC's introduced to the world the larger-than-life, one-of-a-kind personality of Kool Keith. That alone would make this some sort of landmark recording, but it also happens to be one of the finest rap albums from the mid- to late-'80s "new school" in hip-hop that numbered among its contributors Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy, and Boogie Down Productions. Critical Beatdown easily stands with the classic recordings made by those giants, and it is, in some ways, more intriguing because of how short-lived Ultramagnetic turned out to be. It would be wrong to assume that the finest thing about the album is its lyrical invention. Lyrically the group is inspired, to be sure, but the production is equally forward-looking. Critical Beatdown is full of the sort of gritty cuts that would define hip-hop's underground scene, with almost every song sounding like an instant classic. Although he turns in a brilliant performance, Kool Keith had not yet taken completely off into the stratosphere at this early point. He still has at least one foot planted on the street and gives the album a viscerally real feel and accessibility that his later work sometimes lacks. His viewpoint is still uniquely and oddly individual, though, and he already shows signs of the freakish conceptualizing persona that would eventually surface fully under the guise of Dr. Octagon. If Kool Keith gives the album its progressive mentality and adrenaline rush, Ced-Gee gives it its street-level heft and is, in many ways, the album's core. 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.