The creative union that is Nas & Damian Marley live in London: Part 1

This musical union dates back to 2005 when reggae artist, Damian Marley, enlisted the help of rapper, Nas to feature on his track ‘Road To Zion’.

Fast forward 5 years and the duo solidified their artistic coalition with joint album Distant Relatives, which was released in May 2010.

Nas and Damian Marley are both in their own rights distinguished artists.

Nas hailing from New York released debut album, Illamtic back in 1994 and it was well received and is dubbed a classic album. Another 8 studio albums have followed and he is currently working on his tenth studio album set for a summer 2011 release. Nas is heavily regarded as a pioneer and often considered as one of the best within the Hip Hop genre.

Damian Marley also affectionately known as Junior Gong, taking after his father the legend Bob Marley who went by the name of Tuff Gong. The artist is of Jamaican descent which is apparent in his musical style of reggae and dancehall. The three time Grammy award winner has been involved in music since a young age, and it was with his second album, Halfway Tree, that he won his first Grammy.

When you have two artists who can individually hold their own, its not always the case that together they will be a success. This formula has been tried and tested in the past and unfortunately it hasn’t always worked.

Take the case of rapper Jay Z and R&B crooner R Kelly who joined forces to do a collaborative album back in 2002. Although the album did well chart wise, the artists encountered many problems with one another which lead to R Kelly being banned from the tour, which then resulted in a law suit between the two artists.

However with the case of Nas and Damian Marley it does work as they seem to genuinely have a lot in common and have formed a sound friendship on the basis of this, and together they are a force to be reckoned with.

Distant Relatives is a great album fusing Hip Hop, Reggae and adding African and humanitarian themes. Selling 57,000 copies in its first week the album charted at 5 in the US Billboard Charts and in the UK Album Charts it peaked at 30.

As a long time Nas fan I was immediately excited about this album and rightly so because I loved it, and though I wasn’t too familiar with Damian Marley I could only name a few of his tracks, subsequently I also became a fan of his. So obviously when I heard on the radio back in that the duo would be returning to London is part of the second leg of their Distant Relatives tour (unfortunately I missed the first one) I booked tickets immediately.

After excitingly counting down the days (my tickets were booked 7 months in advance) it was finally Thursday the 31st of March and accompanied by my friends, Serena and Marsha - we made our way to Wembley Arena.

After queuing for almost an hour, we realise we didn’t have to queue at all and that we were at the wrong entrance (just typical!). We made our way to the correct entrance and was led into the foyer where we waited for another 20minutes before being shown to our really good seats.

Entertained by a DJ playing old school Hip Hop and Reggae we talked amongst ourselves and bubbled in our seats.

It was 7.21pm precisely when the lights went out to much applause, the only light that was now visible was the red glow of the stage and with that on came supporting act reggae artist Spragga Benz. The slim artist with his dreads wrapped up in a black headdress kept us entertained whilst audience members whined (some of us opting to buss a lil’ slow whine in our seats) to the dancehall riddims. I wasn’t very familiar with Spragga Benz but he had a lot of energy and worked the stage well. His performance took a more serious turn when he paid respect to British reggae artist, Smiley Culture, who recently died under suspicious circumstances which involved the police and rebuked Babylon. Spragga Benz explained to us that the next song that he was going to perform was in honour of his 17 year old son who had been killed in police custody two years ago in Jamaica. As he began to perform ‘Leave All Vebgeance’ he asked the audience to flash their lighters and immediately tiny spots of light illuminated the whole arena. It was a very touching end to his performance and I was moved that he shared such a personal moment with us.

Next up was DJ Semtex who came on and continued the vibes by playing some serious old school Hip Hop - I don’t think we sat down once whilst Semtex was on as he played tune after tune.

Supporting act Erykah Badu brought greetings of peace and love as she came on stage, adorned with what looked like 24inches of weave accompanied with a trendy bowler hat, she wore hareem pants with braces and a gorgeous Burberry black mac which later on in her performance she casually discarded on the stage floor. As someone who personally loves shoes, I must shout out her shoe game as Ms Badu was wearing a sexy red strappy number.

I was straight out of my seat as she began to perform ‘The Healer (Hip Hop)’ which then merged into one of my favourites from Badu, ‘On & On’. At one point she straddled the mic and the audience clapped and whistled at the amazingly kooky woman that stood before us. Other tracks she performed were my favourites ‘Love of My Life’ and ‘Didn’t Cha Know’.

Ms Badu’s performance was drawing to an end but she decided she would keep going, so after cursing out the stage manager dude who stood at the side signalling for her to round it up to our amusement she told us ’I’mma take the risk’ and went into performing ’Soldier’. Before rounding up the song she drew our attention to the revolts currently going on across the world (i.e. Egypt and Tunisia) and began to tell us an uplifting story about a Mexican village that stood up against their tyrant leader and army and were successful in reclaiming their land that had been wrongfully seized. Ms Badu raised her right fist in the air and said ‘all the people against the powers’, thanked the audience, the band and only then did Badu exit the stage on her terms when she was truly ready.