diff --git a/lib/ansible/galaxy/role.py b/lib/ansible/galaxy/role.py
index b7bc4077e3d..99bb525e593 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/galaxy/role.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/galaxy/role.py
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ from shutil import rmtree
 
 from ansible import context
 from ansible.errors import AnsibleError, AnsibleParserError
+from ansible.galaxy.api import GalaxyAPI
 from ansible.galaxy.user_agent import user_agent
 from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native, to_text
 from ansible.module_utils.common.yaml import yaml_dump, yaml_load
@@ -105,9 +106,7 @@ class GalaxyRole(object):
 
     @property
     def api(self):
-        # prevent recursive imports
-        from ansible.cli.galaxy import RoleDistributionServer
-        if isinstance(self._api, RoleDistributionServer):
+        if not isinstance(self._api, GalaxyAPI):
             return self._api.api
         return self._api
 
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/ansible-galaxy-role/tasks/main.yml b/test/integration/targets/ansible-galaxy-role/tasks/main.yml
index e49e4e2958a..03d0b3c2433 100644
--- a/test/integration/targets/ansible-galaxy-role/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/test/integration/targets/ansible-galaxy-role/tasks/main.yml
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+- name: Install role from Galaxy (should not fail with AttributeError)
+  command: ansible-galaxy role install ansible.nope -vvvv --ignore-errors
+
 - name: Archive directories
   file:
     state: directory