McKinley Dixon is one of the few rappers who can drop a bar like “my target audience is everyone with heart,” and have it feel honest, earned, and true. The music is just that spirited and joyous it would genuinely take someone heartless to find fault, and the slinky flows, compelling thematic depth and luscious hooks haven’t gone anywhere on his newest release, Magic, Alive!.
‘Run, Run, Run Pt. II’ is the song the line comes from, and it’s perhaps the best showcase of this album’s momentum and density. The beats are heavy, but always organic and strident, the perfect complement to Dixon’s contemplative bars about a friendship that ended in a tragic death. And that’s ultimately what this album is about: endings, new beginnings, the connections that don’t have to end with death, and, most importantly, resurrection, and the magic therein.
While the album starts with Dixon’s quietly considering his own failures on ‘Wash My Hands’, it’s ‘Sugar Water’ with its chirpy pianos and gospel-inspired hook from Anjimile where things really kick into gear, as Dixon tells the story of a trio of kids who, in the summer heat, decide to try and resurrect their dead friend. To their amazement, it’s successful, and while the initial feeling is joy and relief, the reality of what they did ends up raising more questions than it answers.
From contemplations on his own mortality in an increasingly divided world on ‘Recitatif’, the pensive musings on time’s passage on ‘All The Loved Ones (What Would We Do???)’, to the generational reflection on how what came before has shaped him today on ‘F.F.O.L.’, McKinley Dixon’s wide-angle framing lends these songs so much effortless humanity that his labyrinthine elasticity behind the mic only augments.
The genius of this album comes in how it refuses to shackle itself down, favouring abstract reflections over a defined narrative, which only adds to the whimsy as McKinley Dixon unpacks the meaning of magic – is it merely the act of a magician pulling a coin from behind the ear of a child, or could there be more to it? Maybe it’s the music that keeps the magic alive.
For McKinley Dixon, the magic isn’t just the childish spectacle; it’s everything that the child could go on to achieve. The connections they make, the music they make, the truths they live, and how all of that can lead to something lasting and alive in a cycle of remembering and creating. All of this without a hint of arrogance. Yeah, the magic is well and truly alive with this one.
McKinley Dixon: Magic, Alive! – Out 6 June 2025 (City Slang)
Dixon – Recitatif (feat. Teller Bank$) (Official Lyric Video)
