By Slav Kandyba
Over the Memorial Day weekend, while performing in front of tens of thousands at the sold-out UCLA JazzReggae Fest, Nas told the audience that his collaboration album with Damian Marley, Distant Relatives, was “a passion project” that the labels didn’t know what to do with. The label limbo set the album from a June 30, 2009, release date to one almost a year later, and it’s not like the album has been exceeding expectations at retail. The project has had moderate sales so far, approaching 100,000 unit in the second week in stores.

The live show is a different story. Wherever the Distant Relatives go, the duo sell out the venue. Further, as Nas points out in the interview with AllHipHop, the album’s delay actually helped it to coincide with an event that is making Africa the hub of economic activity this month: one of the world’s biggest sporting events, the World Cup, is taking place in South Africa.

In interviews, Nas has said that recording the album was a cathartic process that helped him deal with a turmoil in personal life. In Damian Marley, God’s Son finds a partner with whom he can relate and touch on topics from politics to friends to religion. With critics and fans embracing the album, Nas and Damian sat down with AllHipHop in L.A. to speak out on label politics, their tour and even have a lighthearted moment about their foreign language skills. (more…)