| Ego Trippin' | |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Ultramagnetic MCs |
| Album: | Critical Beatdown |
| Released: | 1986[1] |
| Genre: | Hip hop |
| Producer: | Ultramagnetic MCs |
"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[2] and was the first song to sample Melvin Bliss's "Synthetic Substitution",[3] now one of the most sampled songs of all time.[4]
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".[5] Kool Keith's rhymes are manic and expressed in a staccato pace.[5] 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".[5] It was meant as a Diss to Run-DMC's style and specifically aimed at their song Peter Piper.