| |
Part B-Boys and part Bad Boys, the Ultramagnetic MC's took a series of mind-blowing singles, including "Ease Back" and "Funky," wrapped them around at least as many new tracks, and released Critical Beatdown, one of the greatest new-school albums. Combining seriously dog-eared samples (James Brown's "Funky Drummer" appears out of tradition, more than necessity, on "Give the Drummer Some," and the Meters' "Look-Ka Py Py" provides the backbone for "Ease Back") with very clipped rhyme patterns from the Kool Moe Dee/Big Daddy Kane school of linguistics, Ultra's style lives on in everyone from 2Pac to Company Flow. Production is tight, and the two-headed leadership of Ced-Gee and lunatic genius Kool Keith (just try to decode his astral cipher on "Ain't It Good to You") makes this album shoulders above other new-school heads. |
|