Yesterday, HipHopDX exclusively premiered a trailer from the Distant Relatives, on their upcoming May 18th album. The behind-the-scenes look at making Damian Marley and Nas’ album features appearances and commentary from Busta Rhymes, K’Naan, DJ Green Lantern and Saul Williams.

Perhaps most surprisng, the footage features Natural Born Killers and Wall Street director Oliver Stone chilling with the Relatives during one particular studio session. “The world’s going to shit anyway. This is evidence: you can put on [the] E! channel or Punk’d or whatever the fuck you want,” said the three-time Academy Award-winner, spliff in hand. “[The only people who matter are good guys] – people who, like, pay attention. Those are the only people that matter. There’s less of them, but they’re important people.”

The Distant Relatives are paying attention to things, including to themselves. Marley explained how the richness of this music and its cause made this project quickly evolve from EP to LP, which each of the artists realized what they were touching upon.
“This is a big step forward for me. This is not something that you’d expect,” added Nas in the trailer. The Queensbridge emcee already has acclaimed albums in Illmatic, Hip-Hop is Dead  and 2008’s Untitled album.

Looking at Distant Relatives first leaked song, “As We Enter” , Marley said that song was a turning point in the recording. “That was the first time we really got into the booth and started feedin’ off each other’s energy.”

The Jamaican-born Reggae sensation said in closing that 2010 is the perfect arrival point for Distant Relatives. “The globe right now is ready for change. And this, right now, is the soundtrack for all of that.”

Distant Relatives releases May 18 on Universal Republic Records.

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