While the rest of the rap world frets over Nas and Kelis' divorce, the man's been hard at work with the legendary Damian Marley on a new album that could very well cross some bridges and set a new standard in rap & reggae.

Nas recently gave fans a little taste of his first single from his upcoming Distant Relatives collaboration album with Damian. "HERE IS AN EXCLUSIVE," Nas wrote on his blog, Kanye-style.  "SNEAK PEEK AT THE FIRST SINGLE FROM THE NEXT ALBUM I'VE BEEN WORKING ON WITH MY MAN DAMIAN MARLEY!! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK??"

The new song "As We Are" features Nas and Marley exchanging verses. "Must be dementia," Nas raps, "That you ever thought you could ever touch our credentials/ What's the initials...Burn candles, say prayers, paint murals/ It is truth, we big news, we hood heros...And I got the guns/ And we can blaze it up on your block if you wanna/ Or, haze it up, stash box in the Hummer/ Or you could run, get done up..."

Check out a sample of the track here. If the 30 second clip is any indicator, we're gonna get our ears around some next-level shit once this album hits. In the meantime, check out this video that documents the making of the album:

A release date still hasn’t been announced, but the video gives a much better understanding of its content, inspired by Nas and Damian’s shared African ancestry.