Distant Relatives

At the end of the 1998 Hype Williams film Belly, Nas, playing a reformed outlaw named Sincere, leaves behind the violence and betrayal of his old life and moves to Africa. That's it. Just Africa. We don't learn where in Africa he moves, or what he does when he gets there. We just hear "Africa," like the entire continent is some gigantic symbol for rebirth and redemption. It's meant to be a triumphant ending, but it' s frustratingly out-of-reach, missing the specificity that could've made it satisfying. There's something of that same nagging well-intentioned vagueness to Nas' latest venture, as well.

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