How I Got Over

This is the ninth studio album by The Roots, who now have a day job playing for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. The Roots are one of my favorite groups, they put on an amazing live show and put out thought-provoking, challenging records. I'm glad they're making regular money, but Black Thought, the primary M.C., is underused on the program and sometimes it feels like they could be doing something else that is less silly. On the other hand, I like knowing they have a sense of humor and it is fun to guess what song they'll play for each guest's walk-on.

Anyway, "How I Got Over" was originally scheduled for February release, but was pushed back to June, reportedly by Def Jam. Is it worth the wait? Kinda. I think I am still holding The Roots up to the incredibly high standards of "Things Fall Apart," which might be unfair. No one can keep recreating the same dope album, and no one should try. Artists have to grow and change. "How I Got Over" has a theme of introspection, questioning God, looking at the problems around our communities and pondering how to change them. It also has way too many guest stars, similar to "Rising Down." Both albums are good, and challenge conventions of what hip-hop is. This is a good idea in theory. But not always great sounding in practice. The title track is very good, especially Black Thought's sung verses. He started using this style on the "Game Theory" album, to particularly good use on "Baby." "Dear God 2.0" is another good track, featuring Jim James of Monsters of Folk. It's a stellar reworking of the Monsters of Folk original, and deserves multiple listens, even if it doesn't make you nod your head until your neck hurts. Overall, the album is heavy on content and not heavy on beats. The only track that really bangs is "Web 20/20," featuring Peedi Peedi and Truck North.

The Roots have every right to make an album that makes you think. But they used to make you want to dance, too, or at least bang your head while listening on the train. Are they growing up? Getting soft? Enjoying that talk show money? Or just following their muse as real artists? I am not entirely sure.

5 Major Misconceptions about Hip-Hop

1. Today's hip-hop music is mostly crap.
Okay, this is largely true. But not entirely. If you listen to the radio (I try not to), or watch the 10 minutes a day when MTV isn't playing reality shows (I don't), you'll hear a lot of crap. Here at the Early Show, we listen to some of everything and you can tell by what we've posted about so far. When it comes to hip-hop, we like the established artists, we like the popular artists and we like the newer, underground folks. We've been huge fans of Jay-Z since Reasonable Doubt. We loved Lil' Wayne around The Carter II and whichever DJ Drama mixtape had "Cannon" on it. Swizz Beatz puts out some good stuff. Sometimes. But all of these guys also put out some crap BECAUSE THEY CAN. People buy it no matter what because it's what's "hot in the game right now." Please. In my opinion, Lil' Wayne and his Young Money clown posse set hip-hop back several years with their Grammy performance. Profanity doesn't equal quality and, for the love of God, pull your pants up.

2. Hip-hop music only uses samples and/or over-simplified synthesizers and drum machines.
Again, there is some truth to this. But it's not always a bad thing. Go back for a second to the Golden Age of Hip-Hop. We'll wait. There was a lot of creativity in sampling back then. Folks like De La Soul, Public Enemy, Biz Markie and the Beastie Boys had some sick productions where they'd take pieces of 8-10 songs and make something new and unique with them. Then the artists they borrowed/stole from found out how much money they were making. Now no one can afford to do this. So today's producers either sample one old song and let it ride, or over-do it with the synths and drum machines. It sure would be nice if some of these producers knew how to play some instruments.

Oh, wait a minute, some of them do! First off, all respect is due to the Roots. They've been doing this live hip-hop thing and making it work for longer than anyone else. (I'm not talking about the whole Jimmy Fallon thing right now.) But the Roots are not the only ones doing it. I saw a couple of great shows in the mid-90s by Common and the Fugees with live bands behind them. A lot of MCs just ask the Roots to back them up, because it's easier. On the local NYC scene, there are tons of bands doing the live hip-hop thing. Going back to the early 2000s, we had the Higher Circle and Alter Egos doing it. These days, we have BR and Timebomb, the Ideas, LAW and Planet 12, Dujeous, Hyphen-One and Daylow out of New Jersey and Swift Technique holding it down for Philadelphia. Flobots is doing their thing in Denver. There are probably more out there we don't know. Holla if we missed someone good.

3. Hip-hop is male-dominated and misogynistic.
Male-dominated? Yes. But there have always been some dope female MC's in the game: Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Salt 'n' Pepa, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Missy Elliot, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Jean Grae, Bahamadia, M.I.A., etc. You can make arguments that some of them had male ghost writers and that some of them used their bodies and sexuality as a crutch but I'm not making that argument. And I just heard a piece last night on NPR (what? I know.) about newer female MC's they heard at this year's SXSW: Kid Sister, Invincible and Malaga. All of them were doing innovative stuff.

Misogynistic? Yes, unfortunately. But not everyone. Step past the radio crap and you'll hear men and women writing some positive, conscious lyrics where you can tell they actually gave some thought to relations between men and women as well as other real-life issues that don't include Cristal or diamond jewelry.

4. Hip-hop is one-dimensional.
I think I've already made my point on this one. I can disprove this misconception just by listing some of my favorite hip-hop artists of all time: OutKast, the Roots, Mos Def, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, Brand Nubian, EPMD, MF Doom, Cee-Lo, Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim. Need I say more? How many dimensions is that?

5. Hip-hop is dead.
The funny thing about this one is most of the people who say it continue to make hip-hop albums (I'm looking at you, Nas). Back in the day, De La Soul called their second album, "De La Soul is Dead." And they were basically stating that the style they brought on their brilliant first album of Daisy-era, hippie stuff was pretty much over. And if you think about it, the people who have created every kind of American music have gone on to completely evolve it and remove themselves from the older sub-genres. Sometimes the creators and their fans leave the music altogether to other people. I'm talking about jazz, blues, rock, and now hip-hop. Commercial hip-hop is just that: commercial. And yet, it's still ignored by people who base their ignorance on these 5 misconceptions (I'm talking to you, L Magazine. Is indie rock really the only music worth listening to? Jeez.)

I had to read this book once for an economics class (got a C minus, thank you very much) that stated that in a global economy, there was less of a need and less market for talented musicians in different parts of the world because everyone now has access to the very best worldwide. They used opera as an example. Everyone can buy Pavarotti, so they don't need their local opera singer whose name I don't know. The same seems to be happening with hip-hop. Everyone can buy Young Money or Gucci Mane, so they don't have to look for quality in their local market. But it's high time that they do.