MAY 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A Nabil Elberkin

Nas, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley NAS & DAMIAN MARLEY Giants of rap and reggae fi nd common roots in the musical family tree

SCARCELY A HIP-HOP OR REGGAE icon Bob Marley. Nas (born Nasir Jones) had producer for Distant Relatives, and album is released these days without a worked with Marley once before, rhyming proceeds from sales will go to charity. We roster of guest performances by stars or on the song “Road to Zion” from Marley’s spoke recently with Marley and Nas, who hot up-and-comers, but full-length album 2005 breakthrough, Welcome to Jamrock. will be touring together through at least collaborations are rare. That fact only made “I said on ‘Road to Zion,’ ‘I’ve been waiting August, about this very special meeting the prospect of teaming up for Distant to do this song with you,’” says Nas, the of minds. Relatives, their new genre-blending album, son of jazz musician Olu Dara. “I had heard more of an enticement for reggae singer some of his music before, and when we How did you decide that now was the Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley and veteran worked on ‘Road,’ we locked in and talked time to make this record? rapper Nas. about working some more.” Recalls Marley, NAS: It’s like it always was supposed to It’s a collection of songs that seeks to “I said, ‘Great, I can’t see anything wrong happen. You listen to what D talks about view the challenges of the world through with doing that.’” in a lot of his music and what I talk about the lens of the troubled continent of Africa, The pair holed up with Marley’s band in a lot of my music, and the only thing an endeavor that both men say involved a in studios in Los Angeles and Miami to try that’s surprising about it to me is that powerful creative experience—and a pretty recording together, and a project initially it’s two different artists from two different good time. “It was a very fun thing to do,” envisioned as an EP blossomed into genres doing an album together. Other than says Marley, the youngest son of reggae a full-length album. Marley served as that, we talk similar shit.

‘I wanted our sound, whatever that was going to be.’ –Nas

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How did you break the ice? did all the songs together. We didn’t NAS: We got in the vocal booth and just MARLEY: We would sit and play music. We fl y stuff around, we just got down with went in on it. listened to some tracks, some stuff we’d each other. been working on, some stuff I grew up MARLEY: We did a lot of jamming. The What did you learn from working with listening to, some stuff he grew up listening musicians and I would jam together and we each other? to, smoke a few joints. came up with a few ideas that way. Some MARLEY: You learn all different things of the tracks are programmed, so not every about the person as a friend. For example, How did you go about fi guring out how track is live. But it was a very creative, Nas has a crazy vocabulary. So I learned all the album should sound? very experimental approach in the these different words just being around him, NAS: I wanted our sound, whatever that was studio—very free. We tried a lot of new because his vocabulary is bananas. going to be. We had the opportunity to start things, a lot of sounds and feels. We had NAS: This man is serious, he’s dedicated to from scratch, with Damian as the producer. many more ideas that we didn’t develop any what he’s talking about. He has a mission—a We wanted to go our own direction and further than the jam sessions, so they’re not few missions—he has goals, and he’s put the reggae in there, put a little hip-hop on the album. disciplined. That’s hard to come by. I fi nd in there. But we wanted to add different myself needing discipline. things, too, so that it’s not all reggae, not “As We Answer” was written and all hip-hop. recorded on the spot. How did that track You’re planning to give some proceeds MARLEY: We didn’t want it to sound typical, come together the way it did? of the album to charity. How did you like what you’d expect from one of my albums MARLEY: The experience of working on decide to do that? or one of Nas’ albums. We wanted to create that song was great. Nas and I were going NAS: We’re going to send some to the an album where you could see there was common ground, but that still had a new sound to it. That was the only thing I was concerned about in approaching the music. Other than that, it was all about feel and Nabil Elberkin whatever felt good.

Africa is a recurring theme. Why? MARLEY: I had one or two tracks I had been working on before we started working on this project, and they were songs based around Africa. So when the idea for the EP came up, those were the fi rst songs we were thinking of using. It’s one of the things I love about Nas’ music: He always mentions Africa. And of course we do it in reggae music all the time, too, so that’s one of the things I really have in common with Nas. Africa is the cradle of civilization, the cradle of humanity. And on the whole, it’s the biggest example of a place that needs help. Even though we’re speaking specifi cally about Africa, we’re really talking Marley and Nas in the studio about humanity in general.

So is this a socially conscious record? ‘It was a very creative, very NAS: I don’t know, man. When you get in the studio with someone like D, we don’t experimental approach in the studio.’ think about that: Is it socially conscious, is –Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley it political, is it pro-Africa, is it pro-people? It’s probably all those things, but the point was that we go in there and say what we had in our heads, what we were concerned back and forth very intricately, like every two motherland, we’re going to send some to our with and what we were feeling. lines it changed between us. We got in the hometowns. We’re going to do what we can. booth together and we were feeding off each We defi nitely want to do something, because How did your collaborative process other’s energy to write the song that way, life is about each one, teach one. Everybody work in the studio? which I’ve never done with another person. needs to look out for each other, especially NAS: D put the tracks together and I’ve done collaborations, of course, and I’ve in this time and age. The world has defi nitely put the music together. He had a lot of written songs in terms of it coming off the been made smaller through technology, so ideas, so I would jump in and we’d talk top of my head and tweaking it after, but not now we’ve got to get tighter. about songs. We just started writing. We at the same time like that. –Eric R. Danton

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