NaS & Damian Marley Ready "Distant Relatives"; Fat Joe Sets Album Release Date

url According to a recent interview with Billboard.com, the NaS and Damian Marley collaboration entitled Distant Relatives is nearly complete. NaS stated the album is “90 percent” complete and that he and Damien have looked to crowd response on their recent Rock the Bells tour-dates to determine how each song will be received. “Just being out here on the road we get a good feel from people about this whole thing” NaS told Billboard.com.

As of now, the album has no set release date, although several tracks have been performed on their recent tour and spread around the web including “As We Enter,” “Strong Will Continue,” and “Africa Must Wake Up.” NaS made it clear that the album will have no set genre by stating, “It’s not reggae. It’s not rap. It’s different shit for each of us.”

In other news, Fat Joe’s album J.O.S.E 2 originally scheduled for a May 19th release, has been moved back to September 29. Joe cited lack of promotion as the reason the album was pushed back as it was set to go up against Eminem’s Relapse, Busta Rhymes Back On My Bullshit, and Redman and Mehtod Man’s Blackout 2.

Joe has enlisted the help of Akon for the first single and stated that T-Pain will collaborate for the second single. Lil Wayne, Ron Browz , Lil Kim, Fabolous, Ne-Yo and Raekwon are also set to appear on J.O.S.E. 2. There was no word on Fat Joe’s “Recession” sneakers.