Today in Hip-Hop: Nas & Damian Marley’s ‘Distant Relatives’ Turns 16 — The Day Rap Went Back to the Source

May 18, 2010. Nas and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley step into a Billboard week and pull off something almost nobody manages — the same record sitting at No. 1 on the Rap chart and the Reggae chart at the same time. Distant Relatives turns 16 today, and the jewel is buried in the very first single: “As We Enter” rides a loop of Mulatu Astatke’s “Yègellé Tezeta,” a 1972 Ethio-jazz record most rap fans had never touched. Two MCs, one Ethiopian vibraphone, the whole diaspora on the table.

Why this one matters

Coming off the untitled 2008 album and the “Hip Hop Is Dead” provocation, Nas wasn’t chasing another street-rap cycle. Distant Relatives was a deliberate left turn — a concept record about ancestry and Africa, drawing the line that connects Queensbridge, Kingston, and Addis Ababa. Nas, the clearest heir to Rakim’s vocabulary explosion, needed a translator with roots in his blood; Damian Marley, Bob’s youngest son, was exactly that.

Musically it’s a crate-digger’s record the way a Pete Rock joint is — except the crate runs through Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Jamaica instead of Blue Note soul. “As We Enter” flips Astatke, the man who literally invented Ethio-jazz; the rest pulls from his contemporaries and roots-reggae foundations. It’s the same case Stetsasonic argued back in 1988 — sampling as scholarship, not theft — just pointed at a different continent. Guests crossed every border: K’naan, Stephen Marley, Junior Reid, Dennis Brown, Joss Stone, and a peak-era Lil Wayne.

And it wasn’t only conceptual. Proceeds were earmarked toward building a school in Africa — rap as actual infrastructure, not a charity line dropped in a verse. That’s why the simultaneous No. 1 across R&B/Hip-Hop, Rap, and Reggae lands so hard: the culture rewarded the swing.

The Marley bloodline

Distant Relatives only exists because Damian carries a lineage. We made a Bob Marley “Iron Lion Zion” tribute hoodie that nods to the same root system — the roots-reggae foundation Jr. Gong handed straight to a Queensbridge legend.

Also today in hip-hop

• 2002 — Big Tymers, Hood Rich: Mannie Fresh and Birdman’s bling-era peak. “Still Fly” was inescapable, and it became the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 that entire calendar year.
• 2004 — Method Man, Tical 0: The Prequel: Meth’s polarizing Def Jam swing — Diddy’s fingerprints all over it, a No. 2 debut, and a Wu-fan argument that still won’t die.
• 2018 — Lil Baby, Harder Than Ever: the Atlanta debut that turned “Yes Indeed” with Drake into a launchpad for one of the decade’s biggest runs.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team