Artist profile ·
MAGNA CARDA HAS SPENT MORE THAN A DECADE EXPANDING AUSTIN HIP-HOP’S LIVE VOCABULARY
Megz Kelli and Dougie Do use jazz-minded instrumentation, rap and a deliberately patient rollout to keep widening the form.
Magna Carda has spent more than a decade making live instrumentation central to Austin hip-hop.
Rapper Megz Kelli and producer-keyboardist Dougie Do, also known as Chris Beale, built a language where jazz, rap, R&B and funk can change emphasis from project to project while the duo’s chemistry stays recognizable.
A slow rollout built for listening
Their March 2026 album inninoutcheamind returns jazz to the foreground through layered live players and Kelli’s close, personal writing. The official credits name a wide network of Austin musicians across bass, drums, keys, horns, guitar and strings.
The duo deliberately stretched the rollout rather than treating the release as a one-week event. That patient campaign fits a group whose live vocabulary was built over years: resources, collaborators and stage experience accumulating until earlier ambitions could be rendered in fuller detail.