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Nas strays into either the too-general ("I reach 'em like Bono/ So get rid of your self-sorrow") or puzzling paranoia ("If satellites is causing earthquakes, will we survive it?"). In trying to make what basically amounts to a modern-day Bob Marley album, they've both pushed themselves away from their strengths. Nas, meanwhile, is best at tense, tactile details: The feeling of gunpowder burning your nostril hair, the dank smell of piss in the project elevator. On his best tracks, he brings less of his father's wizened optimism and more of the gravelly, demonic snarl of dancehall-schooled avengers like Sizzla or Capleton. Marley's never done his best work shooting for inspirational. And first single and album opener "As We Enter" promises great things, Nas and Marley furiously trading off tag-team punchlines over a track that perfectly splits the difference between dusty NY boom-bap and warm post-dancehall reggae.īut too often on Distant Relatives, Nas and Marley fall into a sort of middlebrow funk, kicking overripe platitudes over sunny session-musician lopes and letting their self-importance suffocate their personalities. State of Mind" beat and Nas giddily playing hypeman on "Welcome to Jamrock".
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Onstage together at SXSW, they had a lively chemistry, Marley chatting madly over the "N.Y. Five years ago, Nas guested on Marley's "Road to Zion" and sounded great doing it. Nas and Damian Marley are both sons of celebrated musical figures, so god knows they probably have plenty to talk about. So it makes sense for him to link up with the scion of one of the most universally beloved figures in all of music, making a back-to-basics move that pushes him away from rap and tabloid politics. Nas is in a tough spot right now, coming off of a couple of half-successful, attention-grabbing concept albums and a costly, spiteful public divorce. There's something of that same nagging well-intentioned vagueness to Nas' latest venture, as well. It's meant to be a triumphant ending, but it's frustratingly out-of-reach, missing the specificity that could've made it satisfying. We just hear "Africa," like the entire continent is some gigantic symbol for rebirth and redemption. We don't learn where in Africa he moves, or what he does when he gets there. At the end of the 1998 Hype Williams film Belly, Nas, playing a reformed outlaw named Sincere, leaves behind the violence and betrayal of his old life and moves to Africa.