It’s the textbook definition of a low-stakes mid-career rap album, a place for one of the genre’s icons to show he’s still in decent fighting shape. But at the same time, Magic 2, just like the four projects that came before it, isn’t grand, sharp, or thoughtful enough to warrant the several adoring re-evaluations of Nas’ GOAT status it’s spawned. Nas is flying high on a career third wind (or fourth, depending on who you ask) and having a ball just kicking rhymes and experimenting with flows and styles with a producer who’s on the same wavelength as him. It’s difficult to get too worked up about these Nas and Hit-Boy projects because, at their core, it’s miraculous they even exist at all.

He’s getting better at balancing aged reflections without trying too hard for the kids. Take the second verse of “What This All Really Means,” which converts his frustration about his double album I Am…The Autobiography leaking into fuel to keep making music on his own terms well into old age or how, on “Earvin Magic Johnson,” he looks back on memories of fights at McDonald’s in Manhattan and playing stages in Australia with the same reverent eyes. Ironically, Nas’ jokes and boasts land better when mixed in with his trademark eye for storytelling. Berner & Wiz Mixta 26 Tracks Underground Boom Bap Mixtape V Various Artists. Nas and Hit clearly have a lot of fun putting these projects together-otherwise, why make five of them in three years?-but the punchlines and flexes are hit-or-miss, and it doesn’t help that Hit’s beats lose all of their luster once they default back into his dead-eyed retro-traditionalism. Try-hard wordplay causes him to put his foot in his mouth multiple times and dull the effects of his words-“My scrotum is golden” sounds cringey coming out of his mouth, though it’s not clear who could make “My scrotum is golden” sound cool, either. When he spits lines with catchphrases and slogans like “Durag energy/I’m on a wave, you niggas cap” or ends a handful of others with “for real” on “Abracadabra,” it feels forced, like he’s cycling through Urban Dictionary tabs open on a laptop in the booth. But more often than not, the spell comes undone when you home in on exactly what Nas is saying.

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