Magic 2

Magic 2 is the sixteenth studio album by American rapper Nas. It was released on July 21, 2023 through Mass Appeal Records. The album serves as a sequel to Nas' 2021 album Magic, and is the fifth consecutive Nas album produced by Hit-Boy, following the King's Disease trilogy, as well as the first Magic album. The album contains guest appearances from 50 Cent and 21 Savage.

Background
On July 18, 2023, after almost a week of teasing via his Instagram, Nas announced the album, revealing the title and artwork. 50 Cent also took to Instagram to reveal that he will feature on a track titled "Office Hours".

Critical reception
Magic 2 was met with mostly positive praise from critics upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album has received an average score of 71 based on seven reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Clash's Robin Murray called the album "a bravura feast of word play combined to some of the most effective beats of his career" and found that Nas "tak[es] the energy of his 90s recordings into a fresh era". Dylan Green of Pitchfork described Magic 2 as "a low-stakes mid-career rap album to show that one of the genre's icons is still in decent fighting shape", writing that some of Nas's lines feel "forced, like he's cycling through Urban Dictionary tabs open on a laptop in the booth". Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Paul Simpson concluded that, " While not all of Magic 2 is this strong, there are several moments like this one ["One Mic, One Gun"] that can contend with the best of the King's Disease material."

Track listing
All tracks written by Nasir Jones and Chauncey Hollis (Hit-Boy) and produced by Hit-Boy. "Pistols on Your Album Cover" samples "Hip Hop vs. Rap" by KRS-One.