Back in March, jazz rap duo Magna Carda released their latest – and arguably most impressive – album, inninoutcheamind. The synergetic tag team of producer Dougie Do and rapper Megz Kelli move at their own tempo, so it’s fitting they continued their musical evolution by returning to their sonic beginnings. They’ll play an album release party for inninoutcheamind on Mohawk’s outdoor stage this Friday, with support from Austin-based rapper Mike Melinoe and local neo soul/art-rock group lluvii.
Despite the multi-Austin Music Award winners’ penchant for exquisitely blending elements of jazz and hip-hop alongside gentle strokes of other genres, jazz at times felt like an undercurrent of the duo’s previous works. Jazz envelops inninoutcheamind. The nine-track project’s well-layered live instrumentation provides Kelli with a smoky lounge to deal her most potent and personal showcase of lyricism. A look at the album’s liner notes on Bandcamp reveals an extensive list of contributors. Luke McCrosson’s thumping bass and Blaigne Ayuma’s breathy sax on “Vibe VII” command attention for the New Orleans-bred MC’s engrossing bars about her beginnings: “Knuckles red like I was punching stop signs / Stop cryin’ / Left my city with them burdens, wrote it on my PalmPilot.”
Kelli views inninoutcheamind as a “road map” through their discography because several songs were modeled after older tracks. As a result of honing their skills and an increase in resources, both musicians say they’re finally able to create music closer to their early aspirations.
“[With] Cirqlation, we [had] a little more money, a little bit more friends, but the idea didn’t fully come off as we intended to,” Do says. “I think with this album, this is the most network we’ve [had]. We got the grant from the city. We’re like, ‘I think we can really go back and do all this stuff that we want,’ because [2011 debut mixtape] Creature Creative is all jazz samples. We have the players now to actually [ask]: ‘Can you go play something like that?’”
It’s uncommon to see an album release celebration occur so far after the work’s release date, but Do and Kelli say they’re intentionally conducting a slow rollout of innioutcheamind to counter the modern, microwaved consumption of music. “How you treat your project is how other people are going to treat it,” Kelli explains. “If you toss everything at the wall, throw everything out there right out the gate, and you allow people to just look over it [and] move past it, then that’s what’s going to happen.
“If you want things to be different, then you have to be a part of that change. So we had to treat our own work that way.”
Limited, exclusive merchandise will be available at Mohawk on Friday. Rather than producing vinyl copies of inninoutcheamind, the duo opted to allocate resources toward current efforts on a deluxe version of the album. After performing all over town for more than a decade, the tandem teases a new version of their live act that’ll feel more cohesive. Don’t panic – a band will still back them, of course. The same ambition that inspired them to joyously make their debut mixtape in a day and compose a soundtrack (Little Trumpet) with no prior knowledge of film scores remains, too. “Expect Magna in a way that you really haven’t seen us,” Kelli says. “And people have seen a lot of us in a lot of different iterations. There’s something different here, something fun. Something special.”
This article appears in June 12 • 2026.
