Ultramagnetic MC’s released their debut album Critical Beatdown October 4, 1988

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

Although it charted modestly on 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.

The self-titled track is used on the soundtrack of the videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the classic Hip Hop station ” Playback FM” … [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Beatdown]