Nas & Damian Marley - As We Enter

As anyone lucky enough to hit up this past summer’s Rock the Bells tour knows, legendary emcee Nas and reggae progeny Damian Marley have teamed up for a collabo album, and today we’re being treated to their first official single As We Enter (an apt title considering the circumstances). Produced by Marley himself, As We Enter bounds across your speakers with a retro-meets-dancehall beat that Nas and Damian use to spit their respective flows, teaming up for lines like “I got the guns / and I got the ganga / so we can blaze it up on your block if ya wanna.” Well then, looks like the two are a match made in hip-hop heaven. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but for some reason the chorus feels flat. Other than that, I don’t know how you could listen to As We Enter and not feel hyped for their new album Distant Relatives, which is tentatively due out April 20; and by ‘tentative” I mean you shouldn’t be surprised if April rolls around with nary a Distant Relatives to be found.