Patience
Patience is a song by the New York rapper Nas and the Jamaican reggae artist Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, from their 2010 joint album Distant Relatives. Built on Sabali, a song by the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, it brings rap, reggae and West African pop together on an album about Africa and its diaspora.
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Key facts
- Artists
- Nas and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley
- Album
- Distant Relatives (released 18 May 2010)
- Based on
- Sabali by Amadou & Mariam (2008)
- Producer
- Stephen Marley
- Video
- Directed by Nabil Elderkin, February 2011
An album about Africa
Nas and Damian Marley had worked together before, on Marley’s 2005 album Welcome to Jamrock. NPR presented the project in 2009 as a look at the roots of rap in Africa and Jamaica; in the interview Marley explained that it began as an EP about Africa and grew into a full album, and Nas said the title referred to the human family. Both NPR and the Mail & Guardian reported that the pair meant to give proceeds to projects in Africa, such as building a school.
Distant Relatives was released on 18 May 2010. It entered the US Billboard 200 at number five with about 57,000 copies sold in its first week, and reached number one on the R&B/hip-hop and reggae album charts.
Built on Sabali
The track is based on Sabali, the opening song and first single from Amadou & Mariam’s 2008 album Welcome to Mali. Sabali was produced by Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz, and the music site musicOMH described it as a stark, haunting song sung by Mariam, with Albarn on keyboards and bass.
Patience keeps so much of the original that a Radio Milwaukee presenter called it practically a remix, noting that Nas explains in the song that the word sabali means patience. According to the album’s credits, it was one of three tracks on Distant Relatives produced by Damian’s brother Stephen Marley; the Mail & Guardian confirms that Damian produced all but three songs, and Stephen the rest.
The video and the response
The music video, released in February 2011 as the second from the album, was directed by Nabil Elderkin, who had made videos for Kanye West. LargeUp, a Caribbean music site, described it as set in Egypt, with Amadou & Mariam appearing alongside Nas and Marley; Hypebeast noted its dark, fantastical setting.
Reactions to the song’s reflective, questioning tone were mixed. Hypebeast spoke of its thought-provoking message, while PopMatters, which gave the album seven out of ten, counted Patience among its weaker tracks and found its musings too close to platitudes.
About Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley
Damian Marley is a son of Bob Marley, and his nickname, Jr. Gong, echoes his father’s, Tuff Gong. Unlike his singing siblings, he is above all a deejay who “toasts” over the beat; as he told NPR, toasting is basically what is now called rapping, and it is one of rap’s Jamaican ancestors. That shared lineage is the thread that runs through Distant Relatives.
In Emblem World, the song sits in the Jamaica music collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Distant Relatives
- NPR: Nas, Damian Marley Dig For Rap’s African Roots (13 December 2009)
- Mail & Guardian: Relative collaboration, by Angus Batey (20 August 2010)
- Revolt: Nas and Damian Marley reunite for Jamrock Reggae Cruise (2020)
- LargeUp: Distant Past, Nas & Damian Marley’s new video for ‘Patience’ (7 February 2011)
- Hypebeast: Distant Relatives, Patience (7 February 2011)
- PopMatters: Nas & Damian Marley, Distant Relatives, review by David Amidon (27 May 2010)
- Radio Milwaukee: Of new music and some very vintage reggae (9 August 2011)
- Wikipedia: Welcome to Mali
- musicOMH: Amadou & Mariam, Welcome to Mali, review by Michael Hubbard (17 November 2008)
- NPR: Amadou And Mariam, Well Beyond Mali, review by Robert Christgau (26 March 2009)
- Wikipedia: Damian Marley
Checked by Emblem editorial on 9 October 2026.