Nas And Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley Launch 'Distant Relatives'
Hip-hop and Reggae collide in this high-profile collaborative album
When Nas and Damian teased this album two years ago, our mouths began to drool. After surpassing an estimated release date of over a year again, Nas and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley’s collab album, Distant Relatives, finally landed in stores this week. Cease drooling. Now that the albums here we can finally fill our ears with its smooth flows and peaceful undertones.
Despite many complaints with Nas leaving the heavy lifting to the Bob Marley’s son, Distant Relatives satisfies your eardrums with genre-clashing music. And the masses seem to agree. Sales never lie and the album has been estimated to top 50k records in its first week on shelves. Emphasis on the estimated; we’ll know the real deal when the numbers hit. The album already scores in at a five stars out of five on iTunes in 500 reviews.
Distant Relatives provides 14-tracks of Nas and Marley trading off verses in the first ever full-length reggae/hip-hop collaboration of this caliber. Produced almost entirely by Damian Marley, the album also features Lil’ Wayne, Joss Stone, K’naan, Stephen Marley (another Bob Marley offspring), Jr. Reid and Dennis Brown, artists that are bound to bring in more followers for this long-awaited album.
Distant Relatives expresses the theme that we are all, in fact, relatives of one-another. A definite why-can’t-we-all-get-along vibe with Marley and Nas playing with their African roots to create a mantra that is universal. This is a must listen in a week that also delivers Reflection Eternal’s strong outing Revolutions Per Minute. Must listens are the Joss Stone and Lil’ Wayne featured “My Generation,” “Nah Mean,” the introductory “As We Enter” and “Dispear.” Listen to “Nah Mean” below and cop the album at your local record store.
Posted by Andrew Macnider on May 20, 2010 @ 9:00 am
