Funcrusher Plus is the debut studio album by American hip hop group Company Flow.[3] It was released by Rawkus Records in 1997.[4] In 2009, it was re-released on Definitive Jux.[5] The album has been recognized as "a landmark independent hip-hop release".[6]
Jon Dolan of City Pages noted "[Company Flow's] evincing a confrontational critique of 'those signed, big-budget muthafuckas' like none hip hop has attempted since EPMD's Strictly Business."[16] Andrew Hultkrans of Spin gave the album 8 stars out of 10, commenting that "[the album] deconstructed hip-hop conventions and rebuilt them into a spare, murky, sputtering soundscape."[15] Jeff Weiss of the Los Angeles Times felt that "El-P conjured an apocalyptic minimalism -- the sublimated sound of clanging and cluttered train cars, city grime buried beneath cuticles, and the ghostly smoke of burning blunts."[9] Brian Coleman of CMJ New Music Monthly called it "the most important release of 1997 thus far."[17]The New York Times wrote that Company Flow "rap fast, rude, free-associative boasts and dystopian visions over tracks that mesh raunchy old funk snippets with electronic noise, making hip-hop that's simultaneously propulsive and disorienting."[18]
Nate Patrin of Pitchfork said: "With the exception of the nocturnal crystalline funk of the Bigg Jus-produced 'Lune TNS' and the frequent scratch contributions from secret weapon DJ Mr. Len, Funcrusher Plus' beats bear the mark of El-P's dusty-but-digital aesthetic, which even back then had the same sort of beautiful-dystopia Blade Runner feel that informed Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein and his own Fantastic Damage a few years later."[12]AllMusic gave the album a perfect 5 star rating, and writer Steve Huey stated: "[Funcrusher Plus] demands intense concentration, but also rewards it, and its advancement of hip-hop as an art form is still being felt. It's difficult, challenging music, to be sure, and it's equally far ahead of its time."[7]
Joseph Schafer of Stereogum said, "Funcrusher Plus made for a hell of an opening salvo, and most emcee/producers would envy having such a record in their discography, but El mostly improved upon his work here later."[19]
On October 4, 2011, "Lune TNS" was chosen by NJ.com as the Song of the Day.[6]
In 2003, Funcrusher Plus ranked at number 84 on Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s list.[20] In 2014, Complex listed the album at number 86 on the 90 Best Rap Albums of the 90s.[4] In 2015, it was chosen by Fact as number 4 on the 100 Best Indie Hip-Hop Records of All Time.[21]
