Nas - Magic 2 (Discussion thread)

[Stick Up Kid]

Twitter seems to love it so far lol

The general consensus is it’s a dope album

 

[Ziggiy]

I want a video for Motion and a video for Bokeem Woodbine


Lets GO GOAT!!!

 

[Surreal]

Nas racist AF "like Wata"

 

[u mad son?]

Someone get Alc in the studio with Nas

Hitboy partnership been overrated.

 

[Alexander Wiggin]

This here.

Just saw mad people say the same. And that's thing about Hit's production, it's always been flat and soulless, for the most part. And that's because he's automating a lot of his sh*t and letting DAW's do the work, rather than actually banging out his tracks by hand like the greats do. And that cheap feel definitely comes through when you hear the music. Comes across mad lazy.

If you don’t know any better, you won't hear it. But there's no feel to production like that, and it actually affects the MC too. Nas doesn't sound like he's focused on this, at all. He's one of the best ever, but you can hear that he's not sounding as inspired as he was on the last couple joints.

I was actually wondering when did they had time to record this. It sound like they maybe rushed it a little bit. And I disagree with you on the hit part because so far he gave nas nuthin but heat after heat. But this time the production don't hit hard, it's very experimental rzaish, the beats don't knock. This album makes me feels like 4:44, its cool but nothing more. That's why I didn't want a hit boy nas run back, there's only so long you can stretch a formula without being either repetitive or disappoint.
And it's not a question of time, all their previous effort I was in awe on the first listen. Magic 2 is missing something. And 50 and the bonus track don't help either

 

[Awesome Wells]

I always felt that way about Hit Boy's production but he at least covered that up on certain songs with instrumentation. KD2 is my favorite production wise and what's funny is that's the album he said he had help. The sounds were more full and rich. This album is so hollow. That piano loop on Pistols sounds like a preset pattern off a Fisher Price keyboard. There's horns and strings that are straight tinny. They're just lifeless, flat, and completely devoid of any soul.

Hit dropped the ball on this.

Exactly! Because Hit relies on stock sounds and preset samples too much. He'll pull a stock sound right off of a keyboard and drop it into a DAW and throw a loop on top and give that to Nas. Like you said, no feel or soul to a lot of his sh*t, and that's coming through crazily on this album. He's lazy behind the boards.

He'd be a much doper producer, if he started vinyl diggin' and learned how to put tracks together by hand. Instead of relying so much on automation and dragging and dropping. Been watching dude work since like '09. His approach has always been wild lazy.

 

[Surreal]

The general consensus is it’s a dope album

Shyt go tough AF

 

[Regular_P]

They should not have named this Magic 2. This isn't fukking with the first Magic at all.

Best song off first listen is easily Slow It Down.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Breh you are literally crying in here

You mean talking about music? Yeah, I think that's what we tend to come on here for.

Relax yourself, fam.

 

[Slim Charles]

gonna have to give this a few more spins to decide how I feel about it. As mentioned the Magic title and what they did on the first in terms of sounds, created a certain expectation of type of album. So then Nas switching up the flow on a lot of songs and style kinda thrown me off.

I think a good summary of the reaction is the amount of posts in here isn't crazy since it dropped. Seems a lot of people feeling it, but not making people go holy shyt like some of the stuff on other albums. And that's sort of my first impression. It's all cool but nothing for now making me go crazy like Speechless, Thun. shyt half of Magic and KD3

 

[CourtesyFlush]

To me, Magic 1 is in the top 3 of Nas entire discography. This is dope but doesn't come close to that

 

[Awesome Wells]

I was actually wondering when did they had time to record this. It sound like they maybe rushed it a little bit. And I disagree with you on the hit part because so far he gave nas nuthin but heat after heat. But this time the production don't hit hard, it's very experimental rzaish, the beats don't knock. This album makes me feels like 4:44, its cool but nothing more. That's why I didn't want a hit boy nas run back, there's only so long you can stretch a formula without being either repetitive or disappoint.
And it's not a question of time, all their previous effort I was in awe on the first listen. Magic 2 is missing something. And 50 and the bonus track don't help either

I'm with you on the beats not knocking. And I definitely agree that the partnership should've ended right before this project.

The first Magic was dope. I'm still playing that one, but like you said, formulas can get repetitive. And I was hype to see what 50 was gonna do, and he ended up not doing sh*t. LOL!!

 

[Stick Up Kid]

Exactly! Because Hit relies on stock sounds and preset samples too much. He'll pull a stock sound right off of a keyboard and drop into a DAW and throw a loop on top and give that to Nas. Like you said, no feel or soul to a lot of his sh*t, and that's coming through crazily on this album. He's lazy behind the boards.

He'd be a much doper producer, if he started vinyl diggin' and learned how to put tracks together by hand. Instead of relying so much on automation and dragging and dropping. Been watching dude work since like '09. His approach has always been wild lazy.

Oh shyt the Coli Musicians are out and about

 

[Surreal]

Oh shyt the Coli Musicians are out and about

Nikkas mad their stuck in the 90s producers ain't getting no placement

 

[prophecypro]

I think Nas wants to do exactly what you said. He's been trying to build that kinda connection with one producer since way back, when I was around him in the studio all the time. So I can see why he's giving Hit mad chances with these projects. But I think he'll also do something forever until it absolutely just bottoms out, rather than see the limitations beforehand. The same thing happened with him and Salaam.

There are just certain producers who don’t have the range to carry the kinda volume that he's trying to get out of this partnership with Hit. He needs someone who just has endless dope tracks, and can work at the level of his talent. I think Hit benefits more from just being associated with Nas, at this point. Nas should just be working with someone that's more on his level. This Hit-Boy sh*t ain't gonna magically turn into Primo and Guru or Pete Rock and C.L. Hit's too limited.

I think Salaam for the most part was good with Nas and given their last work was Life is Good I don’t know if it bottomed out

But you can’t blame him from running it back with Hit when they got better with each project and even with this one I’m not sure he gonna drop soon.
Again though I think Hit has proven he can rise to his level and some people are just holding it against him cause of who they perceive him to be as this FL trap pop guy