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Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!
Today’s music pick continues Nas’ terrific three-year run of top-tier collaborations with reliable running mate Hit-Boy.
Genre: Hip-Hop, Boom Bap
Label: Mass Appeal
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Vibe: 🤩
There’s an oft-repeated falsehood about Nas’ career that he peaked too early. I mean, after dropping Illmatic, It Was Written, and I Am… in a five-year span between 1994 and 1999, it’s not hard to see why certain hip-hop heads have been dismissive of his output’s quality since the turn of the century. Like Eminem and Jay-Z, there were also whispers that, as he’s entered middle-age, he’d lost a little bit of the zip on his lyrical fastball. However, beginning in 2020 with the first King’s Disease record, he’s been quietly enjoying a major renaissance, teaming with California multihyphenate Hit-Boy to release some of his best work. The duo’s latest collaboration, Magic 2, leans into the rock-solid formula they’ve forged over five projects: use warm, nostalgic boom-bap backdrops to frame Nas as a rapper who’s equal parts fiery front-stoop truth-spitter and polished rap mogul.
Mr. Jones proves he hasn’t lost even half a step on Abracadabra, letting the haters know what’s up before the first verse kicks in: “No way to describe me, no other word, other than godly/I run it back to back to back to back, ain't no one beside me.” He covers a lot of storytelling ground in just over a half-hour, touching on a doomed romantic relationship (”Black Magic”), transcendent greatness (”Earvin Magic Johnson”), and the hustle required to get where he is today (”What This All Really Means”). The album arguably saves the best for last—the Nas-21 Savage team-up “One Mic, One Gun.” Despite 21 outing himself as a Nasir hater in his own right, the chemistry between the two is as undeniable as it is unpredictable. Overall, what impressed me most is how high a floor Nas has now set for himself a month shy of 50.
Fingers crossed we get a Magic 3 before his current hot streak with Hit-Boy comes to an end.
👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈