Professional ratings
Retrospective reviews
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
NME	9/10
Pitchfork	9.7/10
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Source	5/5
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10
Sputnikmusic	4.5/5

Critical Beatdown is the debut studio album by American hip hop group Ultramagnetic MCs, released on October 4, 1988, by Next Plateau Records. Production for the album was handled primarily by the group's rapper and producer Ced-Gee, who employed an E-mu SP-1200 sampler as the album's main instrument. Music journalists have noted the album for its innovative production, funk-based samples, self-assertive themes, ingenious lyricism, and complex rhyme patterns.

Although it charted modestly upon its release, Critical Beatdown has since been acclaimed by critics as a classic album of hip hop's "golden age" and new school aesthetic. The album's abstract rhymes in strange syncopations laid on top of sampling experiments proved widely influential, from Public Enemy to gangsta rap to several generations of underground hip hop artists.Critical Beatdown was reissued by Roadrunner Records in 2004, with additional tracks.

Before forming as a hip hop group, Ultramagnetic MCs members Cedric "Ced-Gee" Miller, "Kool" Keith Thornton, DJ Moe Love (Maurice Smith), and TR Love (Trevor Randolph) from The Bronx, New York were break dancers for the New York City Breakers and People's Choice crews. They recorded a demo, "Space Groove", in 1984 and released their first single "To Give You Love" in 1985. Other singles, including "Space Groove" and "Something Else", became popular at block parties and earned the group notice in the underground music scene, eventually leading to the group's signing with dance-oriented record label Next Plateau Records.

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Wikipedia