Another sample, the announcement by Pee Wee Marquette, is taken from the Blue Note album A Night at Birdland, Vol.

[2] The song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on March 25, 1994 for selling over 500,000 copies.

Ron Wynn from AllMusic stated that "when words and music mesh", as on "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)", "Us3 show how effectively hip-hop and jazz can blend.

), imaginative use of samples from Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloop Island", and diggy-diggy-bop rapping render this an essential playlist addition.

[10] Another music critic, Peter Paphides, felt "this new colourful little number is piquant yet sweet, adventurous yet convivial, brusque yet somehow inviting.

[16] Charles Aaron from Spin wrote, "When this gem popped out of the sound system at Madison Square Garden (Knicks 98, Clippers 77, January 11, 1994), even Woody Allen quit slouching.

[21] American online publication Slant Magazine listed the song at number 76 in their ranking of "The 100 Best Singles of the 1990s" in 2011, writing, "They got the beats.

What it lacks in social consciousness it makes up for in musical brinkmanship: The production’s exciting explosion of frenetic horn riffs, interrupted only by a sick trumpet solo by Gerard Presencer, samples Herbie Hancock and Lou Donaldson, among others, and grooves in scary synchronicity with the uncannily delivered lyrics by one-time member Rahsaan Kelly.

The mood is creative, idealistic, and laidback, suggesting the good vibes of A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets.

"Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" is played in the films Super Mario Bros. (1993), Jimmy Hollywood (1994), Renaissance Man (1994), It Takes Two (1995),[51] Sisters (2015),[52] and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013), and in the TV shows New York Undercover, Hindsight, the Baywatch episode "Someone to Baywatch Over You" (1994) and the Australian news satire Frontline.