BHM: #TuneTuesday - Africa Must Wake Up

Distant Relatives is a collaborative studio album by American rapper Nas and Jamaican reggae artist Damian Marley, released May 18, 2010, on Universal Republic and Def Jam Recordings. Production for the album took place during 2008 to 2010 and was handled primarily by Damian Marley and Stephen Marley. Fusing musical elements of hip hop and reggae, Distant Relatives features lyrical themes concerning ancestry, poverty, and the plight of Africa. Its proceeds were to go to a project in Africa, with the possibility of building a school in Congo

In an interview with Tim Westwood the following year they went into the meaning of the album. 

Tim Westwood: The show sort of crescendos with Africa Must Wake Up, what is that message?

Nas: When you look at what happened in Egypt and what’s going on in Lybia right now, people are waking up and fighting for theirs, for their freedom. The song was made last year but it’s so relevant it’s timeless I feel like. ‘Cause it goes with the times, with what’s going on and people want freedom. People are tired of the way they been living, over there. People are tired of dictatorships they tired of it. So it’s a new day. When we saying Africa must wake up we saying everybody wake up…… It’s distant relatives but we’re talking to everybody.

Damian: We’re human. The most important thing. And even in the album that is one of the parts that we’re trying to get across not because we’re talking about Africa. Africa is the cradle of civilization. So don’t care where you come from you come from Africa too.

Sources:
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