How I Got Over – The Roots

Why I Chose It

Daniel told me to

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A Piece of Light - standard intro track. nice relaxing beat though.

Walk Alone - Piano in the beat is a nice touch. Flow is good. There's a feeling like the beat is going to pick it up. And you expect the piano to come in at certain times, but it doesn't. It's well done. The chorus is good. The second rapper has a weird voice. 

Dear God 2.0 - Very minimalist intro. This isn't rap. It's hip hop. It's not meant to sell records or make people dance. It's art. I like this word play, and of course his flow. "If everything is made in China, are we Chinese?/ And why do haters separate us like we siamese?"

Radio Daze  - I like how it flowed into the next song. Again, a nod your head to the beat song. I like the cymbal crashes. good song.

Now Or Never - Bongos lol. Faster beat and a faster flow. It's done well, again. These aren't the usual rap lyrics. They are self reflexive and introspective. It's different. "I gotta get my shit together. It's now or never". Is that happy resolution?

How I Got Over - I like the organ in the back. I like the faster beat again. This song has more confidence  than the other ones. The guitar in the back is cool too. 

The Day - Um. Another good one. This girl's part for the chorus is kinda annoying. When she says "a clearer. vision." it bugs me. 

Right On - I like the "hit it!" in the beginning. calm beat again. "a lot of people counting on me, kinda like a digit". very nice. STS has a good rap in this song.  

Doin It Again - "Snare roll" intro is pretty entertaining. This song is pretty good. 

The Fire - More Powerful than the other songs. John Legend does that I guess. I like this song a lot.

Web 20/20 -  Just a straight spit. minimal beat. Straight flow. The aggressiveness is much more present this time around. The beat is still really good though. It's different, not just drum and bass.

Hustla - I like the weird voice auto-tune intro thing. "They say life's a bitch, but it's only one life to live". 

Write Up

Maybe I'm doing this whole thing wrong. So far, of the 5 CDs I've listened to, 4 of them have been primarily lyric driven CDs. Their power and uniqueness comes mostly from the lyrics. On The Dutchess and the Duke, the lyrics were slow enough that I could understand them. And they were pretty simple and didn't contain a lot of metaphor, which is the problem I encountered with Radiohead and Bright Eyes. The Roots present a similar problem. Hip Hop is very lyric driven and while the beat drives the song a lot of the time. There isn't a lot of variation they do. I mean, with the genre they're trying to be apart of,  there's not much one can do. You can't add a lot of sirens, or any sort of similar party tricks into the songs. If they're trying to make a serious CD, you can't really even use anything silly to make the songs stand out.

Now, that being said, I need to listen to this CD more. I liked most of the beats and the flows are really good. The wordplay and the themes of the songs would make themselves more evident once you have time to spend on the CD. 

Would I listen Again?

Yea....