These are some moments from 2 weeks spent on the road with the Distant Relatives Tour. This album is amazing, head to a record store and pick it up.
What we’re about to do right now is go back. Back to a time when rap’s greatest hits were created in basement soundrooms, not corporate
boardrooms. When dancehall and hip hop music was all about moving the crowd not “moving units.” Before Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley and Nasty
Nasir Jones first began trodding the long and winding “Road to Zion.” The artists’ first collaboration went so well that they decided to
do a full album together, and that album is Distant Relatives.
Unlike all previous collaborations between Jamaican and American artists, Distant Relatives is neither a remix nor a featured guest spot
on a single track but a fully collaborative effort filling an entire album, opening new avenues of musical expression. Distant Relatives
traces the direct line from dancehall reggae’s breakthrough moment forty years ago to the rise of hip hop several years later—from Run D.M.C.
and Yellowman’s groundbreaking collaboration “Roots Rap Reggae” through Supercat introducing Biggie Smalls to the world on the “Dolly My Baby”
remix and Shabba Ranks and KRS-One joining forces on “The Jam.” That line continues right up through Damian Marley and Nas’ double-Grammy-
winning “Road To Zion.”
is an album created by two serious artists to explore and celebrate the correlations and deep-rooted connections between reggae and hip hop,
tracing both sounds back to the African motherland that is both the cradle of humanity and the wellspring of mankind’s music.
And who better to fulfill this mission? The youngest son of the legendary Bob Marley, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley garnered his own place in music
history when he became the first ever reggae artist to win a Grammy Award outside of the Reggae category, taking home an award for Best Urban/
Alternative performance for his smash 2005 single “Welcome To Jamrock.” The acclaimed breakthrough album of the same name also won a Grammy Award
for Best Reggae Album.
A hip-hop icon since his immortal guest verse on Main Source’s 1991 “Live At The Barbeque,” Nas burst out of the Queensbridge housing projects,
a hotbed of rap artistry since the early ’80s. The son of jazz trumpeter Olu Dara, Nas has since gone on to sell over 20 million albums worldwide
over the span of his legendary career, and has acted as an ambassador for hip-hop culture throughout the globe.
“When we first started working, I was thinking about what direction we should go in,” Nas explained during a recent discussion at the Grammy
Museum. “Cause it’s all kinda like the same—reggae, rap. But it went to its own thing… We had a few concepts. All basically around empowerment in a
way, cause if we’re talking about Distant Relatives we’re talking about the human family.”
The sound of Distant Relatives features live musicians as well as studio production by Damian Marley and his elder brother Stephen Marley, a
distinguished award-winning artist and producer in his own right. Featured artists on the album connect other diasporic dots— New Orleans’ own Lil
Wayne as well as the critically acclaimed Somali-born, Canadian-raised MC K’NAAN.
“I didn’t want it to sound like something that would be typical of me, neither typical of Nas,” said Damian Marley, who produced much of the album.
“But something where you can still see how there’s a middle ground in the music. But where you can still hear something that is reminiscent of either
of us… It’s been really fun. Cause we’ve been going in the booth together. Especially as a lyricist, it’s really like iron sharpen iron. You can’t
slack off right now. It’s a great learning experience for me too.” And that experience extends to young listeners who will surely be enlightened and
educated about the shared cultural legacy of Africa, America, and the Caribbean.
“The whole process is gonna be fun,” Nas adds. “I think we can have fun helping people. When I think about things we wanna do with this album,
it’s just limitless.”
NAS
A hip-hop icon since the early 1990s, Nas emerged from the Queensbridge neighborhood of Long Island City, a hotbed of rap artist since the ’80s. The
son of jazz trumpeter Olu Dara, Nas has since gone on to sell over 20 million albums worldwide over the span of his legendary career, and has acted as
an embassador for hip-hop culture throughout the globe. Nas first reached an international audience when his track “Halftime” was tapped by producer
MC Serch as the opening cut on 1992’s Zebrahead movie soundtrack. The first full-length album by poet and rhyme-master Nas arrived in 1994, the RIAA
platinum Illmatic. Since then he has released 8 solo albums and 3 compilation albums that have garnered 11 GRAMMY nominations and certified either
double-platinum, platinum and gold.
DAMIAN “JR GONG” MARLEY
The youngest son of Reggae legend Bob Marley, Damian “JR Gong” Marley garnered his own place in music history when he became the first ever Reggae
artist to win a GRAMMY outside of the Reggae category, taking home an award for Best Urban/Alternative performance for the Welcome To Jamrock, single.
The acclaimed breakthrough 2005 disc also won a GRAMMY for Best Reggae Album. Heralded by Rolling Stone as one of the ‘Top 10 new artists to watch,’
since the release of Welcome To Jamrock the youngest son of Reggae legend Bob Marley has been touring non-stop shaking up stages all over the world.
Text taken from www.distantrelatives.com
www.myspace.com/distantrelatives
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