Magic 2 Review

Five albums with one producer in three years is a remarkable work rate, and this is where the rate starts to cost something. Nothing here is bad. Abracadabra opens with a good swaggering strut. Motion is smooth and well built. Office Hours brings back an old Queens rival for a reunion that is pleasant rather than electric. What This All Really Means has the record's best writing on it, a late reflection that suggests what a more considered album might have been. Black Magic and Slow It Down are competent.

That word is the problem. The beats reuse the palette from the four records before it without extending it, the hooks are functional, and a number of verses read like a great technician doing reps rather than a writer with something pressing to say. He sounds relaxed in a way that reads as low stakes rather than assured. Two months later he released another sequel in the same series, which says plenty about how much weight anybody involved expected this one to carry. For a rapper thirty years into a career this is a respectable floor. It is still the least necessary thing in a very good late run.