After cryptically teasing “The Finale” last week, Nas has delivered his third and final album in the Hit-Boy-assisted trilogy with the arrival of Magic 3.
The NYC icon delivered the project on his 50th birthday, September 14. Magic 3 serves as a gift to Hip-Hop as the genre also celebrates its golden jubilee year in 2023.
The prolific duo shared the album less than two months after the second offering in the Magic series. The 15-track project clocks in at just over 45 minutes and includes only one feature. Lil Wayne makes a guest appearance on track No. 6, “Never Die.”
Stream Magic 3 at the end of the page.
Nas And Hit-Boy’s Iconic Partnership
Magic 3 marks the end of one of the most prolific partnerships in Hip-Hop, with Nas and Hit-Boy leaving a legacy of two epic trilogies. The dynamic pairing launched their partnership with the Grammy-winning King’s Disease in 2021, with the second in the series arriving later that year. Kings Disease III concluded the series in November 2022.
Nas and Hit-Boy celebrated Christmas 2021 with the first Magic album to kick off their second trilogy series. They dropped the sequel earlier this summer before delivering Magic 3 this week, their sixth album in just three years.
Earlier this year, the Queen’s legend explained he’s returned to the studio with a consistency he hasn’t experienced in 20 years.
“I’m in one of these creative growth spurts,” Nas told Vanity Fair in June. “It’s something that I’m really excited about and it surprises me – but I’m not too, too surprised because I was also waiting for the day that I felt like this again, and I knew it would come.”
According to Nas, “It hasn’t been this way for me for probably 20 years. I think that’s what I think today, maybe tomorrow I think about, well, actually accurately seven years, or since I’ve been really in the studio, but when it comes in my head now, it’s been that long—20 years.”
Nas – Magic 3
