This is the 4th full-length LP from Canadian-American emcee Jay Worthy. Coming on my radar in 2017 after The Alchemist produced his debut EP Fantasy Island from top to bottom, he would go onto drop 5 more EPs & a fantastic collab album with Larry June called 2 P’z in a Pod even though initial plans of putting it out through Griselda Records fell through for whatever reason. Harry Fraud-produced his debut You Take the Credit, We’ll Take the Check & DJ Muggs did the sophomore effort What They Hittin’ 4 to significant acclaim, but the Roc Marciano-produced Nothing Bigger Than the Program was still good despite having too many features. Once I heard DāM-FunK was producing Magic Hour top to bottom, I was hoping it would surpass the predecessor from 14 months ago.
“San Dimas” featuring G Perico starts off on some flawless g-funk shit asking if you’re turned the fuck in at this point whereas “Westside” delves further into the relax & organic sound featuring live instrumentation, use of P-Funk samples & high-pitched synth lines to represent California to the fullest. “Rich Today” embraces the g-funk sound heavier talking about how it ain’t nothing to a pimp like him just before “Boogie” featuring the late Nate Dogg’s son NHale builds upon Nate’s sound that he was the King of spitting that g shit continuing his dad’s tradition.
Meanwhile on “Can’t Do That”, we have Worthy mellowly slickly talking about being on his MJ shit & on a new bag at this point in his career ahead of the spacious g-funk banger “105 West” featuring Channel Tres, DJ Quik & Ty$ for all the party people to slide to. “It’s So Hard” featuring Obsce Chill keeping the gangsta funk alive staying in the ghetto like Too $hort explaining the hardships of being a g, but then “Untouchable” featuring P-Lo futuristically advises that this joint in particular is exclusively for the playas.
After the “Olde 8 Again” interlude, “Heartstop” featuring Channel Tres goes into synth-funk turf explaining that their hearts legitimately stop when they don’t get to see one another while the beat on “Connected” featuring Barney Bones gives me Rainbow Road Mario Kart vibes instrumentally flexing the ties they have. “Bounce” featuring Soopafly takes you a whole millennium head to the future for a joint to the west to bounce to while the g-funk track “Watch Your Tone” advises to do simply that around them.
“Caught Up” heavily builds itself around synthesizers as a way of nearing the conclusion of Magic Hour while “Let You Go” featuring $ha Hef brings the East/West emcees together over a g-funk beat breaking the news to their significant others that they’re cutting off romantic ties with one another going forward. Last but not least, “Can’t Fade the Funk” ends the album charmingly gets self-explanatory for 1 last song showing P dabbling in DāM’s production style.
It was a bit disappointing that Nothing Bigger Than the Program was overloaded with features considering that Marci proved his status as a underrated producer on Marciology earlier on in the year but anyway, I’m finding myself preferring Magic Hour more in comparison. DāM-FunK’s production as one would expect fully embraces the g-funk sound Dr. Dre popularized in the 90s & conceptually, Jay’s paying homage to the roots of west coast hip hop in a modern way.
Score: 8/10