Released 1986 Producer(s) Ultramagnetic MCs | Genre Hip Hop | |
Writer(s) Cedric Miller, Keith Matthew Thornton, Maurice Smith | ||
"Ego Trippin′" is a 1986 song by Ultramagnetic MCs. The group made a stylistic breakthrough with it; the song boasted dense, minimalist production, featuring erratic lyricism by Ced-Gee and Kool Keith, synthesizer riffs and was the first song to sample Melvin Bliss's "Synthetic Substitution", now one of the most sampled songs of all time.
Contents
Lyricism
The Anthology of Rap, published by Yale University Press, makes note of such pseudoscientific terminology in Ced-Gee's lyricism on "Ego Trippin'", particularly the lines "Usin' frequencies and data, I am approximate / Leaving revolutions turning, emerging chemistry / With the precise implications, achieved adversively". Kool Keith's rhymes are manic and expressed in a staccato pace. His lyrics on "Ego Trippin'" also criticize the musical aesthetic of old school hip hop artists at the time: "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 copasetic / Using nursery terms, at least not poetic".