How I Got Over (album)

Background

In 2008, The Roots stated that their final album would be Rising Down (2008), until drummer and producer for The Roots, Questlove, stated via his Twitter account that the band would release an album called How I Got Over in the summer. How I Got Over was recorded during The Roots' tenure as the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It was recorded in sessions at several Philadelphia studios—A House Called Quest, Fruity Loops, The Boom Room, and The Studio—and at MSR Studios in New York City.

The album was set to be released in February 2010, but was subsequently pushed back to June 8, 2010. Their ninth album, it was released June 22, 2010 on Def Jam Recordings.

Music and lyrics

From the tracks initially expected to make the album, only 'The Day', 'Walk Alone' and the title song 'How I Got Over' made the final track listing. Similar to the previous The Roots full-length, 2008's Rising Down the album features a wide array of guest singers and rappers. John Legend appears on the single 'The Fire' and alternative rock group Monsters of Folk help The Roots remake their own song, 'Dear God' into an updated '...2.0' version which was released as the most promoted single. The album also feature a track that samples Joanna Newsom's "Book of Right-On," a track featured on her 2004 release The Milk-Eyed Mender, as well as new overdubs for the track, The Roots' version appears under the title 'Right On' here.

The album was expected to have political content relating to the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. On June 23, 2009, Billboard reported: "Among the tracks expected to make the cut are 'Walk Alone,' the vintage R&B-leaning 'Make a Move,' 'The Day' featuring Icelandic vocalist Patty Crash and a cover of Frank Zappa's instrumental classic 'Peaches en Regalia.' 'How I Got Over' is also expected to include a version of Cody Chesnutt's 'Serve This Royalty;' the singer-songwriter rose to fame in 2002 when the Roots re-recorded his song 'The Seed' for their album 'Phrenology'".

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 51,000 copies. It also entered at number three on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Rap Albums charts, and at number four on the Digital Albums chart. In Canada, the album entered at number 14 on the Top 100 Albums chart. It also charted at number three in Switzerland, at number 117 in France, at number 61 in the Netherlands, and at number 35 in New Zealand.

In its second week on the Billboard 200, How I Got Over dropped to number 17 and sold 21,000 copies. It fell to number 25 on the chart and sold 14,000 copies in its third week. By November 3, 2010, the album had sold 151,000 copies in the US.

Critical reception

How I Got Over received widespread acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 86, based on 23 reviews. Reviewers praised the record's slow-grooving music, the contributions of its guest artists, and the lyrical depth of the songs. AllMusic's Andy Kellman described it as "deeply planted in realism... gracefully and cleverly sequenced", while Rolling Stone critic Nathan Brackett highlighted The Roots' incorporation of indie rock elements into their "in the pocket" sound. Pitchfork's Nate Patrin deemed How I Got Over "a particularly efficient album... the Roots' shortest (a lean 42 and a half minutes), one of their most lyrically straightforward, and a work of strong stylistic cohesion". In The New York Times, Jon Pareles appraised the record as a meditative work about self-determination that he believed was particularly relevant to the economic downturn of the late 2000s. "Even in its boasts, How I Got Over is selfless: an album of doubts, parables and pep talks", Pareles wrote. James Shahan from URB found it "dark and tragic in places, but also enlightening and empowering", and Spin journalist Charles Aaron said "you'd have to rewind early-'90s Scarface or Wu-Tang for such convincingly cold-eyed hip-hop existentialism". Writing for MSN Music, Robert Christgau was impressed by how the rappers on the album had expressed "garden-variety upper-middle-class anxiety" in a forthright, thoughtful, articulate, and enjoyable manner, while musical elements such as Kamal Gray's keyboards and Questlove's drums "embodied" the "fortitude and even optimism" of the lyrics. Eric Henderson was less enthusiastic in Slant Magazine, finding the lyrics inconsistent and "mildly self-delusional" while calling the album "stylistically the most inert, contemplative, offputtingly soft music they've possibly ever released".

According to Metacritic, How I Got Over was the 15th-best reviewed album of 2010. Several critics included it in their top-10 records lists for the year; it was ranked number seven by Vibe, number five by both The A.V. Club and Todd Martens from the Los Angeles Times, number 10 by both Consequence of Sound and Jim DeRogatis, and number three by BBC Music. Christgau named How I Got Over the year's best album and wrote in The Barnes & Noble Review, "in 2010 what sounded best was the Roots' brave and sometimes painful change-of-life hip-hop, a multivalent reflection on the pop lifer's danger years, the late thirties." He later called it the "most substantial" album of the Roots' career. How I Got Over was also nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award in the category of Best Rap Album.

Track listing

The track listing was confirmed by Okayplayer.

Personnel

Credits for How I Got Over adapted from liner notes.