Distant Relatives Review

The premise is a lecture waiting to happen and the record mostly dodges it, because Damian Marley produced a set of beats too good to argue with. As We Enter is built on an Ethiopian jazz loop and runs ninety seconds without wasting one of them; Patience turns a Sudanese group's chant into the most beautiful thing in either man's catalog; Strong Will Continue and Tribes at War fill the room. The vibe is the achievement here, a whole album that sounds like one place.

The writing is where the reception split, and fairly. Nas is at his most didactic, and the record's ideas about Africa arrive as statements rather than as scenes, which is the opposite of what makes his best verses work. Marley is the more natural presence on his own production and takes the emotional weight of most songs. The proceeds funded a school in the Congo, which the album never lets you forget.

A B is the honest headline: an album this well made and this thin on argument is exactly a B, and the production and atmosphere sit above it because they are what people came back for.