Nas and Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley recorded one excellent single together, "Road to Zion," in 2005. As much as I enjoyed hearing the N.Y. rap legend and the reggae scion play off each other's styles on that track, though, I never guessed that they would be following it up four years later with a full collaborative album, Distant Relatives, tentatively set for release this June. Turns out, neither did they.

"I didn't really plan this," Nas told me when I reached him by phone recently. "It just feels right." In a separate conversation, Marley explained that the idea for Distant Relatives originated last year with his management: "The idea was for us to do an EP based on Africa, using one or two tracks that didn't make my album, likewise one or two tracks that didn't make his album. Once we started working on the music, though, everyone was so excited that we decided to make this a full-out album." Click through to the jump for more details on how Distant Relatives is shaping up.