Above everything else that defines them, the Roots are capital-P Professionals. That's why they're perfect for their "Late Night" job. They don't fit there because, as critics would say, they're easily digestible; they fit because they're versatile and consistently operate at a high level. They're encyclopedic music scholars who're proud of their chops but don't flash them at the expense of an accessible hook. They never compromise, even though they're refined enough to help set the standards for grown-man class in hip-hop. And it's possible to listen to their last few albums without being reminded they're big-idea concept records, even though their themes leave an impression fairly quickly.
So after all the delays and discarded material (whatever happened to that "Peaches En Regalia" cover?), How I Got Over has emerged as a particularly efficient album. It's the Roots' shortest (a lean 42 and a half minutes), one of their most lyrically straightforward, and a work of strong stylistic cohesion. A decade's worth of personnel changes notwithstanding, it's clear that this is the same braintrust that made "The Next Movement" sound so vibrant 11 years ago; the two most prominent instrumental components remain ?uestlove's in-the-pocket drumming and the Ahmad Jamal/Donny Hathaway resonance of Kamal Gray's keyboards. And on the mic, Black Thought maintains his usual level-headed authority, continuing to come across at his best like a down-to-earth version of Rakim.
But what makes How I Got Over work is its sense of purpose. After the jaw-clenching stress rap of their last two excellent Def Jam releases, Game Theory and Rising Down, this record operates as a slow-build mission statement on how to overcome. Everything hinges on the title track, a stirring anthem built from a congas-and-organ backbone that sounds like a funkier, livelier inversion of Steely Dan's "Do It Again". As a showcase for Dice Raw and Black Thought's unexpectedly tender singing voices-- as well as the latter MC's ability to elevate simple sentiments with his delivery-- it feels like the group's usual rigorous standards being met. But it isn't exactly an accurate indication of how the album itself turns out sounding.
Instead, it's a pivot point, where everything before its halfway-mark appearance is the tunnel and everything afterwards is the light. How I Got Over is sequenced with a distinct idea of mood progression, changing from defeated, malaise-stricken piano-ballad dirges to defiant statements of survival and resilience. Black Thought's tough lamentations on early tracks "Walk Alone" and "Radio Daze" pick up where the more introspective moments of Rising Down left off. And even if he pushes a few metaphors past the breaking point or coasts on stating the obvious for a line or two, he doesn't suffer from a lack of relatability.
Once "How I Got Over" breaks through the first half's well-crafted melancholy and transitions into its more resolute second half, the sound shifts from glowing downtempo neo-soul to something more energized. "Right On" pits Joanna Newsom's lilting voice and harp against one of the most commanding drum breaks on the album; John Legend is artfully deployed as both a ghostly sample (the cathedral-sized "Doin' It Again") and an intense live vocalist ("The Fire"); "Web 20/20" upends the minimalist snare-driven charge of its Tipping Point namesake and mutates it into a jury-rigged, elastic-ricochet revamp of snap music. Black Thought ups his mood over the course of things as well, and by the time they reach the record's unlikely final hook-- "Hustla"'s Auto-Tuned crying-baby-- he's turning struggles into strengths for the sake of his next generation.
A lot has been made of the indie rock collaborations on this album, particularly the appearances by Newsom, the Monsters of Folk on "Dear God 2.0", and the wordless a cappella chorus from Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley Dekle of the Dirty Projectors on the intro track "A Peace of Light". But their crossover efforts land firmly on the Roots' side of the equation, integrating into their Soulquarian aesthetic instead of nudging them the other way. Meanwhile, the guest MCs do just as much to round out How I Got Over's personality. The recurring satellite members that bolstered the ranks on Rising Down reprise their roles here (an on-fire Dice Raw, the low-key sharpness of Truck North and P.O.R.N., the obligatory show-stealing Peedi Peedi appearance). "Right On" and "Hustla" make for a couple of good showcases for promising Philly-via-ATL up-and-comer STS, who's molded his semi-drawl into an agile flow. And there's a couple of fine verses from Little Brother's Phonte and some absolute revelations from L.A. phenom Blu, both of whom sound vital even when they spend most of their time describing their anxiety.
How I Got Over has its title for a reason. It alludes to the gospel standard popularized by Clara Ward, and has a similarly spiritual-minded cast to it as its namesake's tribute to the power of belief in helping people reach the promised land. Maybe it's not as explicitly religious, but it regularly alludes to some form of higher power, whether it's God or a more secular sense of things that are simply out of civilization's control. And that's the compelling thing about the Roots on this album: They're not afraid to show humility and frustration when confronted with struggle, operating on the same level of humanity as the people who listen to it. For all the Roots' tight professionalism and clockwork consistency, for all their late-night TV exposure and their status as alt-rap icons, they're not superhuman. But the fact that they know this, that they can make a whole album about coming to terms with it-- that makes them powerful.
