As a bonus, it’s also the best verse on the tape and a hint that Nas could drop a vicious album in the vein of Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear if he put the time into it. The verse has very little to do with the album’s message and stands as Nas’ lone ego moment (sans the unexplainable “there’s only one Nas, y’all” on “Count Your Blessings”).
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“Strong Will Continue” is full of signifiers that the track is important and capital BIG, but there’s not much substance from either artist until Marley gives up on the weak guitars and bastard Untitled-style synths (he tries his best to hide them, seemingly uncomfortable with them himself), then gives Nas a lonely violin and allows him to go off on a tangent about his ex-wife, Kelis. Junior Gong’s production also comes off as heavy-handed much of the time. Rarely if ever do the two reach those heights on the rest of Distant Relatives. Elsewhere, like “Count Your Blessings” or “Land of Promise”, Nas seems unable to find a home: it’s a feeling that pervades about half of the album, which is unfortunate given the chemistry on “As We Enter” and “Road to Zion”. “In His Own Words” uses similar lines of questioning, but not as clumsily thanks to Nas’ verses, and “Strong Will Continue” is similarly didactic until Nas’ final verse. “Patience” has received plenty of flack in a post-“Miracles” world, but it deserves the treatment considering the platitudes and misguided attempts at provoking hard thought from its audience. What makes “As We Enter” work so well is that both artists work with their message, but neither compromises himself for it. The lead single on Distant Relatives, “As We Enter”, provides a strong contrast musically with its uptempo tribal propulsion and back-and-forth verses from the two artists, but in every other way signals more blazing chemistry.
Over a dreamy Ella Fitzgerald sample, the two dropped the sort of Pan-African philosophizing that Nas has long been known for, but they did it in a very natural and humble way that betrayed a strong union between the two performers in both inspiration and purpose. Five years ago, Nasty Nas and Damian “Junior Gong” Marley hooked up for “Road to Zion”, a one-off on Marley’s debut LP, Welcome to Jamrock, that clearly towered over everything on the album but the title track.