Songfacts®:

• 50 Cent takes sexual innuendo to a new level on "Magic Stick," where he raps about his bedroom sorcery. When he hits his target, she'll surely fall under his spell.
  
  The song is filled with lots of clever wordplay à la LL Cool J's lover jams like "Doin' It" and "Loungin' (Who Do Ya Luv)." Check out this line:
  
  I had you off early in the morning, moanin'
  
  He's answered by Lil' Kim, who wields a different kind of magic. She's got the magic cl-t (edited out in the clean version), which gives her powers over all men who come in contact with it.
• Even though 50 Cent takes up the first minute of this song, "Magic Stick" is officially credited to Lil' Kim with 50 a featured artist. Both are credited as writers.
  
  According to 50, he wrote the song for his debut album, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', and planned to use Trina as his duet partner. She recorded her parts, but they didn't work for 50. "They f--ked up the record," he told Apple Music. "The lyrics and everything was messed up."
  
  Gee Roberson at Atlantic Records heard the track and convinced 50 to use Lil' Kim, an Atlantic artist, on it instead. By they time she recorded it, 50 didn't have any room left on Get Rich Or Die Tryin', so it went on Kim's album La Bella Mafia.
• This song is a little unusual because 50 Cent and Lil' Kim both rap and sing on the track. In the early '00s, these rap/sung collaborations because so prevalent that a Grammy category was dedicated to them in 2002 (the first winner, "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" by Eve and Gwen Stefani). On most of these collabs, one person would rap the verses and another would sing the hook, but 50 often sings his choruses, and that's how he built "Magic Stick."
• Blatantly sexual songs couched with anodyne titles like "Magic Stick" date back to blues recordings from the previous century - "Crawling King Snake" by John Lee Hooker is a good example. In the '70s, rockers often sang about their private parts, perhaps most flagrantly by Kiss on "Love Gun." In 1972, Chuck Berry had a #1 hit with "My Ding-a-Ling," which is about exactly what you think it's about.
  
  So the foundation had been laid for "Magic Stick," which found a new take on the subject. There is a popular song from 1978 by Ian Dury called "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick," but that one is about his walking stick - Dury had polio and used one to get around.
• "Magic Stick" was a big hit in the summer of 2003, spending three weeks at #2 behind "Crazy In Love" by Jay-Z and Beyoncé. It was part of a string of hits for 50 Cent that started with "In Da Club" and "21 Questions," both #1 hits. "Magic Stick" came next, followed by another Get Rich Or Die Tryin' track, "P.I.M.P."
• Lil' Kim and 50 Cent were both from New York City but ran in different circles. 50 was part of the G-Unit crew and often worked with Dr. Dre and Eminem. Lil' Kim ran with The Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy before signing with Atlantic. She was in the group Junior M.A.F.I.A. with Biggie, who died in 1997.
  
  Kim was one of the top female rappers of the era and the right one to call for a raunchy verse - something she often delivered with Junior M.A.F.I.A. Two years before "Magic Stick," she was part of the #1 remake of "Lady Marmalade," making her the first female rapper to appear on a chart-topper.
• The intro is sampled from a 1975 R&B song by Joe Simon called "It Be's That Way Sometimes."
• 50 Cent and Lil' Kim are both credited as writers on this song along with the track's producers, Phantom Of The Beats (Carlos Evans) and Sha Money (Michael Clervoix). Rick Ravon and Roy Hawkins, the writers of "It Be's That Way Sometimes," are also credited because of the sample.
• If you're looking for Magic Dick, you're in the wrong place. He's the harmonica player in the J. Geils Band, the folks who brought us the '80s hits "Centerfold" and "Freeze-Frame."
• No video was made for this song. 50 Cent implied that he refused to make one because he had some issues with Lil' Kim. The best we can tell, the song is the biggest hit of the '00s that didn't have an official video.
• The single version runs 3:31, but on the album it runs to 6:00, tagged with a skit where Lil' Kim is on a radio show (WBUZ) taking calls from fans.
• 50 Cent and Lil' Kim didn't perform the song together until August 17, 2011, when she joined him on stage at his concert in Perth, Australia. In 2023, 50 put the song in his setlist but would do just the chorus and first verse before vamping out the song as he got a lap dance. Kim hasn't performed very often since the song was released, but she often includes it in her sets.
• "Magic Stick" was the second single from Lil' Kim's album La Bella Mafia, following the Timbaland-produced "The Jump Off." It was her first album since 2000 and it got her right back in the game, but she was derailed in 2004 when she was convicted of perjury in testimony she gave regarding a 2001 shooting. She spent a year in jail starting in 2005.