Your real friends won’t do you wrong, real friend don’t change.”
“Your real friends will serve you long, acquaintances will fade. Over a hypnotic and haunting beat, Marley repeats his chorus featured in and out of Nas’ interludes. “Look what’s it come to…Our rapport’s good no more. We was good before, ’till I saw what type a dude you took me for. We had a chance to take paper down. What I took was more. Because of hatred, opportunity wasted,” Nas raps with passion and anger. This sentimental tribute allows for male listeners to connect to the emotions often experienced when friends turn their backs, but often are repressed.
The artists talk about their different interpretations on what it means to be a leader.ĭamian Marley reminisces: “Everything you do? It impact me. Your lifestyle attract me, parents try distract me. When I grow up I want to be like you exactly.”įollowing this less political path comes the next track, “Friends,” through which Nas and Damian spit honestly about the issues that face friendships. Stephen Marley guest appears in the tune “Leaders,” by repping’ the chorus throughout. Other songs tug at the overwhelming nostalgia one feels while remembering their impressionable teenage years, bred from pure naiveté. “Man what happened to us? Geographically they moved us from Africa. We was once happiness pursuers. Now we back stabbing, combative and abusive.” Nas continues, “The African and Arab go at it, they most Muslim.” In a more politically charged song, “Tribal War,” the two touch on oppression of blacks in America and the forced migration that other minorities have faced, as well as the unfortunate consequences of such. Switch up the language and move to Ghana.”Ī fascinating aspect to this album is that regardless of the extreme difference in style and sound, the duo are able to collaborate under a mere set list and moral beliefs - how oppression, progression and repression can yield remarkably sensational results. Habari gain,” to which Marley responds “Nzuri sana. Nas articulates, “Y’all feel me even if it’s in Swahili. “As We Enter” opens the album in near narrative form, as Nas and Marley play off each other’s latest thought. There’s never a moment of silence, only spitfire enthusiasm and energy, one of the best ways to foreshadow an album that is as lyrically serious as it is playful. Marley, the youngest of Bob Marley’s sons, and Nas, the son of a jazz musician, open the album with a back-and-forth sequence of spitting rhymes. This multifaceted album brings heavy rhymes from American rapper and songwriter Nas to blissfully mix with the smooth and upbeat style of Jamaican reggae artist Damian Marley. “We were both so excited,” Damian says, “we decided to make it a full-length album.White supremacy, America’s youth and heritage are all covered in Nas and Damian Marley’s 2010 collaboration, “Distant Relatives.” It was Marley’s manager Dan Dalton who suggested they get back in the studio to record an EP and the rest, as they say, is history. Gong’s Grammy-winning classic Welcome to Jamrock. The artists first discovered their creative chemistry while recording the track “Road to Zion,” which appeared on Jr. “That’s the way Jah planned it,” said Damian when I asked how the project came together during a recent chat aboard the most recent Welcome to Jamrock Reggae Cruise. “My man’ll speak patois,” Nas rhymes, “and i can speak rap star.” He concluded his verse with a Swahili greeting “Habari gani,” to which Damian replied “Nzuri sana,” as if they were two friends chatting on the streets of Nairobi. In the lead single “As We Enter,” Nas and D trade intricate bars over a Mulatu Astatke breakbeat. But in 2010 the idea of a rapper from Queensbridge and a dancehall DJ from Kingston was a forward-thinking concept-though hardly out of character for two sons of respected musicians who had been raised with a deep and abiding respect for African culture. A decade later, the wide-ranging genre known as “Afro Beats” occupy a place of power within the global music market, and artists like Burna Boy, Wizkid, and Stonebwoy are well known to listeners all over the world. Described by The New York Times as “A Mash Up on Behalf of Mother Africa,” Distant Relatives was constructed around a diverse array of samples, ranging from classic reggae to dancehall/hip hop to Ethiopian jazz.