Distant Relatives

Nas & Damian Marley – Distant Relatives
Reviewed by Sadie O., 10/8/10
Hip Hop/Dancehall duets. Way too much orchestration and production for my tastes, and I’m not a big fan of Nas’s style, but that’s me. Jr. Gong is always good, and K’naan guests on a couple of tracks. Apparently this version of the release has been cleaned up, because there’s a few gaps in Nas’s raps.
Best tracks IMO are 2 and 8 – 1, 5 and 7 are decent, too.
1. 2:28 ***trumpet flourish intro, then midtempo dancehall riddim (rather a circus ride kind of sound) with Nas & Damian tossing raps back and forth min-line.
2. 4:30 ****strings, xylophone, electronics, big chorus, a bit of African element in the percussion. Unusual mash-up. K’naan adds his distinctive vocal/lyrical style.
3. 6:01 (“niggas” a few times) **very faint heartbeat intro, a bunch of Nas talking, then slow dancehall riddim, Damian singing as well as rapping, female chorus. A couple of long raps by Nas.
4. 4:20 **slow swingy skank, guest singing by Stephen Marley.
5. 4:49 ***sampled African vocal intro, very downtempo orchestral riddim.
6. 4:24 *smooth-jazzy rhythm. Damian sings. Riddim gets a bit harder when Nas raps.
7. 5:53 ***vaguely African style female chanting, then forceful slightly downtempo dancehall riddim, rather more like what we expect from Jr. Gong. Bit of chat about Africa at end.
8. 3:54 ****trumpet flourishes intro, then slow skank – best riddim yet. Very small bits of Dennis Brown singing.
9. 5:00 *”unplugged” acoustic guitar and piano. A bit pretty for my tastes. Stephen Marley sings.
10. 4:09 **hard downtempo dancehall skank. Lots of rap from both parties.
11. 5:46 *slow, rather depressed sounding, muffled female chorus, nice rhythm in Damian’s rap.
12. 4:00 **child chorus and Joss Stone warbling. Lil Wayne does a guest rap. Several seconds of kids squealing at end.
13. 6:40 *slow orchestra and piano intro, slow syncopated sway after half a minute. K’naan’s rap in Somali is the best part of the song by far.