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Jan 25, 2022It’s remarkable how these beats all have their own feel yet still work as a cohesive whole. The well-worn joke in hip-hop circles that Nas picks bad beats is effectively wiped. Nas is, in his own words, reincarnated, but with an additional self-awareness that is more grounded than his last few performances. There’s no cryptocurrency chatter or verses shoehorned into trap instrumentals. There are no skips, this is simply good ol’ Nas distilled.
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Jan 12, 2022With a solid foundation of beats, introspective lyricism and a sharp pen at his disposal, Nas might be the only rapper to have two releases in the best albums of the 2021 conversation. Magic.
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Jan 12, 2022Magic closes with the majestic "Dedicated," as a sumptuous beat switch allows Nas to effortlessly change flows. This caps off an immaculate project that finds Nas regaining top form and will surely find its way close to the top of his illustrious discography, which is aging like fine wine.
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Jan 12, 2022Some bits here are the starkest and most direct compositions of the producer’s career to date, and that’s more than saying something. Suffice to say, as corny as it may be to declare, the project is perfectly named, Magic, because it provides just that.
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Jan 13, 2022Despite how direct the lyricism is, it plays like two friends riffing in the studio and building off each other’s energy; listeners can hear how much Nas loves what he’s doing. The fact Hip Hop fans are getting appetizers of this caliber to hold us over until an inevitable third entry in the series is, in itself, Magic.
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Jan 18, 2022Summery beats and glitched-out soul samples make tracks like "Ugly" and "Hollywood Gangsta," and the huge fun of "Wave Gods" finds A$AP Rocky dropping in for a guest verse while DJ Premier scratches in some familiar hooks from the archives of golden-era rap.
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Jan 12, 2022You could knock Magic for being backward-facing, but then again, all of Nas’s music is backward-facing. It’s charming when he revisits his own gospels, but the nostalgia act would be easier to swallow if it weren’t so resentful.
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MojoFeb 16, 2022Nas's fifteenth is a heap of comfort food for old-school rap fans. [Apr 2022, p.90]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 41 out of 51
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Mixed: 1 out of 51
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Negative: 9 out of 51
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Nov 20, 2022**** album, he's old af and still wants to chase the one and only J-Z. Go to sleep Nas, you ain't nothing to the goat
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Nov 29, 2022what can i say about this one? trash. garbage. **** runnin out of words to describe it.
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Nov 23, 2022trash as usual. hes so overrated that even this **** will go down as one of his greatest albums. shame.