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best yet. [lists of 2010, music.]

In 2010, some sort of miracle took place and several amazing bands released their best albums yet. Not just good bands who had a great year, but brilliant bands who had no business transcending their previous work, and yet still did. And the winners are…

1. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Scott: In my opinion, Arcade Fire was the epitome of one of those bands mentioned above. Bloggers and critics alike have almost universally praised it, so I’m not alone. Some are even referring to the CD as Arcade Fire’s OK Computer. High praise indeed.

If I was forced to pick just one favorite album this year, there is a strong chance this would be the one.

Also, if you haven’t yet, you should watch the Spike Jonze directed video for “The Suburbs.” Epic.

Brian: In my opinion, Arcade was one of those bands … wait, that’s already been said. But it’s true. The Suburbs garnered three Grammy nominations [ Album of the Year, Best Alternative Music Album, and Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals ] … proof the the Grammys still are paying attention to the really great music that is still being made out there, despite what MTV would have us believe.

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2. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

S: I’ve already written about this album at great length. Suffice it to say, I think it is a pop masterpiece. Kanye did some world conquering this year.

B: Pitchfork gave it an extremely rare 10 out of 10. Plus, what more can be said after this has been written?

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3. The Roots – How I Got Over

S: As is the case with so many of these albums, I’ve already written a bit about this one. You can read that here. It’s still hard for me to be sure this is their best album yet, because they are so continually reinventing their sound from project to project that each album is so unique and brilliant. I can tell you that whenever iTunes is set on shuffle and a song from this album comes on, I more often than not find myself putting on the whole CD as a result. It’s a remarkably listenable album. My affection for it just grows and grows.

B: The Roots brand of genre blending, smart, tight hip hop is as genre blending, smart, and tight as ever. Black Thought, ?uestlove, and the rest of the Legendary Roots Crew, the greatest band in hip hop (and late night TV), have made an astonishingly good album. But then again, we’ve come to expect them to do just that.

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4. Girl Talk – All Day

B: Greg Gillis, the brains behind Girl Talk, has done it again, but this time, he’s really done it. This time around, Gillis seems to have pulled more from popular music, more specifically from his top 40 contemporaries. Ozzy Osborne and Ludacris, Foxy Brown and Peter Gabriel, Radiohead and ODB, Portishead and Big Boi, Phoenix and Ludacris. He pulls from multiple genres and multiple decades creating insanely fun, danceable music from the sometimes mediocre. While I dislike Lil’ Wayne (I hate him, to put it more accurately), as soon as he shows up in a Girl Talk song, I love it. Perhaps it is the fact that Gillis has the talent and pop sensibilities to take two seemingly unrelated songs, separated by 3 decades, and miles apart as far as the amount of talent goes, and create something new (all while lounging around with his girlfriend!). The first week he released All Day, it “broke the internet“. To say this is Girl Talk’s best work, is truly saying something.

S: Yup, what Brian said pretty much sums it up.

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5. Beach House – Teen Dream

B: I first heard of Beach House when I was still living in Baltimore. I didn’t hear of them because they were a local band. Here is the story: It was St. Patrick’s Day ’08. I was walking into a local Irish pub and ran into the parents of an old friend from high school. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked what my friend had been up to since I hadn’t talked to him in about two years. “Oh, he’s in Austin with his band for some music festival … South by Southwest, or something.”  This came as a surprise. Not a huge surprise, but a surprise. Alex and I grew up playing together. He was super talented and had everything you need to make it in music. I just thought he would go another direction. I (and so many others) am glad he didn’t. Beach House has gotten huge. Their brand of lo-fi dream pop is good. Damn good. Organs, keyboards, slide guitars built a wall of fuzzy, dreamy sound around the reverb-drenched vocals of Victoria Legrand on the first two releases. On Teen Dream, we find her voice out in front of the wall of dreaminess. The whole thing sounds less lo-fi as a result. Everything seems tighter and more dynamic. I could listen to the album any day, all day. How is it their best release to date when their first two albums were included on Pitchfork’s best list the year they came out? They are that good.

S: I remember when I first heard of Beach House. I was making out with Rosario Dawson when my friend Mos Def called me and told me he’d just heard a great indie band I might like called The National. I told him I already listened to The National, and they were good friends of mine. Actually, I needed to remind him that I’d already told him about The National a month or so earlier, when the two of us were out drinking with Donald Glover and Alison Brie. We laughed about the fact that we had done so much drinking and laughing and best friending that he had completely forgotten about the band I tried to introduce him to.

That was when he mentioned Beach House.

They are really great. I like them. (That last line is true.)

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6. The Black Keys – Brothers

S: Just picked by iTunes as the album of the year, Brothers finds The Black Keys up to their old tricks; crafting songs full of bad-ass swagger and keen relational insight, all wrapped up in a fun musical package.

Whether you are getting dressed for a big night out and want a soundtrack that makes you feel awesome, are looking to rage against that asshole who jilted you, or are in the mood for some sweet, sweet, babymaking fun, this album has the right prescription for you. Just let Drs. Auerbach and Carney cure what ails ya.

B: I love Scott’s last paragraph! The Black Keys are masters of down and dirty garage blues/rock with a touch of refinement. Brothers is no exception. If you love fuzz box distortion, cool keyboard/organ riffs, kick ass drumming, and bluesy vocals (as well as everything Scott mentioned), you will agree that Brothers is one of the best albums of 2010, and The Black Keys best album to date.

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7. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

S: Like many people I know, my relationship with Sufjan had sort of run its course. It seemed it was never meant to be one of those love affairs that turn into a happy marriage. Instead, it appeared it was destined to be the hot, short, flash in the pan sort of union that you look back on fondly because it was a lot of fun at the time. There was no part of me that was excited for this album to come out.

Yet, when the All Delighted People EP came out, I used some spare emusic credits to pick it up, and suddenly those old feelings started rising to the surface. Then the Age of Adz came out, and suddenly I found myself wondering if perhaps my love affair with Sufjan might become the lasting sort after all.

With Age of Adz, he has successfully balanced between reinvention of himself and continuity with what made him great in the past. He’s still full of audacity, as evidenced by all 25 minutes of the album’s final track, “Impossible Soul”; and the man still has the talent to back it up, as evidenced by the fact that I’ve heard all 25 minutes of said track aired on KEXP more than once.

B: Looking over this list, it seems that the bands here have at least one thing in common (maybe except Girl Talk, but he is a different animal), each has the ability to reinvent themselves and grow over the span of each release. It is something that takes balls and artistic vision. Not every band has these qualities. When you change, you run the risk of alienating a part of your fanbase. When you don’t change, you get criticized for not pushing forward into new sounds. Change is scary and hard. It takes balls. When a band is so sure of who they are, change is easier. They make music that is honest and free to go wherever the soul of the band dictates. Sufjan’s new album exhibits his amazing artistic vision and his huge balls. It is an epic tapestry of sounds where Sufjan pulls out all the stops. We thought he was audacious when news first broke that he wanted to make an album for all 50 states, but listen to the Age of Adz and I think you’ll find that audacity was redirected into one beautiful and grandiose album.

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kanye west – power.

Kanye, performing live on SNL.

It’s easy to miss how hard it actually is to rap live at that volume without a crew to yell words in key places, as is the common practice, which actually helps you catch your breath and keeps you from having to shout to make a point. These verses have a fairly high degree of difficulty, especially in terms of breathlessness, and by performing alone he has no safety net whatsoever. He kills it.

It seems Ye’s rock star self-importance manifests as him surrounding himself with beauty. He chooses art direction over an entourage.

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kanye west and the golden age of hip hop.

Hip hop is dead.

At least, that’s what we always hear.

The days of hip hop as an artistic medium; as a collision of poetry, african beats and rhythms, urban musical sensibilities, angst, joy, and community have gone the way of the buffalo, making room for the southern invasion of practically lyric-less club music unambiguously and entirely about blow jobs, strip clubs and swimming pools.

Yet, to quote lesser hip hop god the RZA, “How can hip hop be dead if Wu-tang is forever?”

Seriously though, to quote what the RZA has to say which is a bit more helpful, “How has the South dominated hip hop for the last four, five years without lyrics, without hip hop culture really in their blood? Those brothers came out representing more of a stereotype of how black people are.”

If it’s not hip hop, then how can it be dominating hip hop? Well, it isn’t. Just because some dumb-ass at Mtv or BET says it’s hip hop, that doesn’t make it so. It’s why I think we actually need a stronger distinction between the genres of hip hop and rap, commonalities may exist to a great degree, but the differences are too important to ignore. Yet, that is better left for another post.

This could also lead to a critical conversation about Jay-Z, the self-professed greatest rapper alive, but out of respect for Kanye, I’ll leave his friend out of this post. Either way, hip hop is not dead. Quality hip hop has still been produced, it just hasn’t gotten the commercial attention of folks like ‘lil Wayne or 50 Cent, but it’s been there, and it’s been amazing.

Yet, the reality that it hasn’t gotten the commercial attention has one HUGE exception. Kanye West.

Usually, when Kanye is in the news, it’s all about him being nuts. Granted, he’s done plenty of things over the years, and recently, to reinforce this, but it baffles me how we are still surprised by all this. We’re all crazy, and to go further, what artistic geniuses have there been throughout history who weren’t also idiosyncratic and a little bit insane? For some reason, crazy and genius go hand in hand.

Case in point, Miles Davis. That guy was one crazy mother fucker. Yet, he’s as prolific a musical genius as the world has ever seen. He was nuts, and he was brilliant, and one doesn’t cancel out the other.

However, I don’t think it is fair to draw much of a comparison between the insanity of Miles and Kanye. Miles destroyed every personal relationship he encountered, often seemingly without apology or remorse. For much of his life, people were disgusted by being in the same room, and yet were drawn to his musical carisma in a way which made it impossible to keep from collaborating with him artistically. Kanye, on the other hand, is adored by those who know him personally. His public persona is often one of angry, raging, arrogant insensitivity. Yet, every single interviewer, collaborator and friend speaks of him as a quiet, sweet, intelligent guy who is easy to talk to and be around.

No, the comparison I want to draw between Miles Davis and Kanye West isn’t about their insanity, it’s about their genius. That’s right, Kanye West is in the very early stages of becoming the Miles Davis of Hip Hop.

Let me explain.

Once Miles Davis entered the bebop scene in the 40’s, he was at the forefront of every major transition in jazz that followed during his lifetime. Everything that happened in jazz during his life was either his invention, or else he impacted it so much that it might as well have been. His singular talent was obviously a huge part of what made this possible, but more than his talent, it was his vision. Davis was never satisfied, never content with things as they were, and he forged into new ways of creating music that no one had encountered before. He was able to dream up what was next, and then it was his talent that helped him make those dreams a reality. Thus, there were certainly musicians and producers in the 20th century who influenced music as much as Miles did, but there were none who influenced it more.

Miles changed everything. Again, and again, and again. His talent, his relationships with the best jazz musicians and producers of his time, his imagination, even his insanity, resulted in the remarkable phenomenon in which he was jazz music. As he reinvented himself over and over again, he was also reinventing the rules of jazz music.

Thanks in huge part to Davis, jazz moved from bebop, to cool, to hard bop, to modal, to fusion, from golden age to golden age.

Kanye West is just such a figure. Hip hop is not dead, and with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, it is very possible that, right now, Kanye is making good on the progress he has orchestrated the last five years, and is now establishing a new golden age of hip hop.

Don’t let there be any confusion about it. Kanye West is a genius. He was shaping hip hop before any of us knew who he was, producing as early as 14 years ago, working behind the scenes to create beats and samples that would come to reshape the hip hop milieu.

I’ll leave a full biography to wikipedia and the like, but West’s influence on hip hop simply cannot be overstated. I still remember one summer, when I had given up on mainstream hip hop altogether. I avoided radio stations like the plague. Yet, I was doing work at a high school, cataloguing text books, and they were playing Top 40 radio through the PA system. Thank God they were, because it is how I first heard Through the Wire.”

I was hooked immediately. It was something fresh, something smart, something innovative, which doesn’t even get in to the audacity he had to make his first single a song in which he performed through a jaw which was wired shut following his near fatal car accident. I had no idea that this song was setting the tone, both as a producer and as an emcee, for a career that would continue to impress and amaze me.

As a producer, Kanye is second to none. His movement as an artist is extraordinary, innovating from album to album, most notably with The College Dropout, where his promise made the whole industry excited; 808’s and Heartbreaks, in which he takes the seemingly irredeemable medium of autotune and uses it to create a remarkable piece of autobiographical art; and now My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which takes every bit of promise he showed in his career so far and creates a stunningly beautiful and complex work. The new album isn’t his Low End Theory/Midnight Marauders, or his OK Computer, or his Joshua Tree. This album is his New Testament, fulfilling the utterances of what came before and changing the game completely.

Lyrically, Kanye doesn’t get the credit he is due either. His ability to marry his production to words in a way that offers his soul to the listener is brave and unprecedented in the world of hip hop. Artists like Janelle Monáe are certainly doing similar things, creating a theme that carries over an entire album, mixing performance and autobiography while also combining existing parts to create something new. Yet, anyone doing it now owes some credit to West.

What Kanye did on “Through the Wire” was a sign of things to come. Kanye didn’t wait until his jaw healed to get back to creating, instead, he made his weakness a part of his art. He rapped through the wire, through the pain and injury, and made something wonderful.

Too often, Kanye’s lyrics aren’t listened to carefully enough to hear the ambiguity, the struggle, the embracing of his own contradictions. Sure, “Hell of a Life,” can be interpreted as a mere ode to the hip hop lifestyle, in the “Party Like a Rock Star” vein. But, if you listen more closely, it is that and more. West at once revels in and mourns the reality of his celebrity lifestyle. He has done so all along. It isn’t coincidence the chorus/title draw one’s attention to hell.

Kanye wrestles back and forth between the desire to be seen, and the desire to hide. I understand the desire to be known, while also becoming prickly and angry when I am seen. Kanye seems to deal with this all the time, creating art which bears his soul, only to become angry and afraid when his creation meets the insensitivity of the world at large, resulting in personal pain, as well as remarkable wealth and fame. West often seems terribly self-conscious and uncomfortable with much of what celebrity is, although he admitted to his self-conscious nature on his very first album, so that’s nothing new.

Yet, that discomfort only makes the triumph of his ballad “All the Lights” that much more palpable.

/turn up the lights in here, baby/extra bright/i want ya’ll to see this/

Kanye hasn’t started hiding his contradictions, and still lyrically takes responsibility for the harm he does when he makes mistakes, but he seems to be done apologizing for being human. As is the case with most artists, he is much more self-aware in his lyrics than he is speaking to interviewers and the like. This can be seen most clearly in the stark contrast between the sharp racial commentary he makes at times on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy vs. his well publicized rant about George W. Bush on VH1, in which his anger was more than fair, but his words and timing fell short of making a salient political point.

As an emcee, Kanye offers commentary on himself, hip hop, and the larger culture, which shows a depth people miss when they don’t listen closely. Kanye might be hyper-self-conscious sometimes, but it’s the necessary salve for the fact that most popular musicians of all genres are completely incapable of any self-awareness. Thus, in a way, Kanye is hip hop, offering the swagger, materialism, and sexual obsessions that are the hallmarks of popular music, but then mourning those realities in the same breath.

Across hip hop, from artistically credible acts like Mos Def, Common, and Talib Kweli, to the more dubious acts like ‘lil Wayne and The Game, West has produced tracks which continue to form hip hop. He introduces new acts with exciting, genre-transcending talent, like John Legend and Kid Cudi. And with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy he has offered an album which will shape all the albums that come next, in and out of his primary genre classification.

Oddly enough, for a guy who is viewed by the public at large as a misanthrope, it is Kanye’s gift for relationship and collaboration, coupled with his ability to reveal his soul in his art, which show his true genius. Here is what Q-Tip had to say about collaborating with Kanye on the latest album (via kottke).

“I’d never worked the way Kanye was working in Hawaii. Everybody’s opinions mattered and counted. You would walk in, and there’s Consequence and Pusha T and everybody is sitting in there and he’s playing music and everyone is weighing in. It was like music by committee. [Laughs.] It was fresh that everybody cared like that. I have my people that listen to my stuff-I think everybody does-but his thing is much more like, if the delivery guy comes in the studio and Kanye likes him and they strike up a conversation, he’ll go, ‘Check this out, tell me what you think.’ Which speaks volumes about who he is and how he sees and views people. Every person has a voice and an idea, so he’s sincerely looking to hear what you have to say-good, bad, or whatever…

With Kanye, when he has his beats or his rhymes, he offers them to the committee and we’re all invited to dissect, strip, or add on to what he’s already started. By the end of the sessions, you see how he integrates and transforms everyone’s contributions, so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He’s a real wizard at it. What he does is alchemy, really.”

I’m sure the same is true when he is working on someone else’s track as well. It’s like his own beauty and pain are a filter, he takes in the talent and insight of those around him, filters them through himself, and the result is something extraordinary.

As he has set, and continues to set ,the tone and trajectory for hip hop; as he collaborates with artists like Bon Iver; as acts like Kid Cudi, Lupe Fiasco and outer genre acts like Janelle Monáe take cues from West, the future of popular music just might be golden.

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beats, rhymes and fights: the history of a tribe called quest. [trailer park.]

Beats, Rhymes and Fights is an upcoming documentary about the incomparable Hip Hop group, A Tribe Called Quest.

Directed by Michael Rappaport, Tribe emcee Q-Tip has already come out saying he isn’t supporting the documentary because, as he tweeted, “I am not in support of the a tribe called quest documentary,” he wrote. “The filmmaker should respect the band to the point of honoring the few requests that’s was made abt the piece.” With all due respect to Q-Tip, and quite a bit is due, I disagree. If Rappaport really wants to honor and respect the band and its fans, then he should tell their story honestly, not in fluff piece or hagiographic terms.

I still remember standing in Barnes and Noble, looking at the magazines and seeing the cover announcing that Tribe was breaking up. It was a big deal to me. It still is. Fans want to know what happened, what went wrong to break up the greatest Hip Hop group in history. As a fan of the group, for whom the band has been counted as one of my five favorite musical acts for 16 years now, I think this documentary is going to be epic and satisfying, while also more than a little tragic.

Watch the trailer here.

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Kid Cudi – Maniac [feat. Cage & St. Vincent]

Driving home from work on Sunday night, I tuned into KEXP here in Seattle, to catch the last bit of the Sunday night hip hop show. So glad I did. This is the song I was treated to …

I love his use of St. Vincent’s “The Strangers”, plus, how awesome is the album cover? Cudi’s new album, “Man On The Moon 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager” drops today, and if this track is any indication, it should be some hot shit.

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Out with the Old (Shit), In with the New (Awesome Shit)

I used to love Weezer … they were my favorite band from about 1995 up until 2002 … after that point, I was just deluding myself into thinking that they were still great, and would return to the brilliance of the Blue Album and Pinkerton … I thought that maybe Rivers just had to get some more generic shit out of his system before going back to honest, strong songwriting. He seemed genuinely hurt by the initial critical and commercial reception of Pinkerton, and from that point forward decided to go the “Eff you” route of songcrafting … generic lyrics, uninspired composition (using the song’s melody for every guitar solo??? in the eternal words of GOB Bluth, “C’mon!!!”), safe 4 chord power pop … it’s as if he was saying,

“I am way better than this, and I showed it on the first two records, but you bitches didn’t appreciate it … I poured myself into Pinkerton, and you hated it! and because that record had so much of me in it, by hating it and rejecting it, you have hated and rejected me. Don’t expect to see that Rivers again. I’m gonna write watered down lyrics that make no sense, I’m gonna make sure I flash some of my former brilliance, but that’s just to tease you mofos … sure the amps are still gonna go to 11, but don’t expect anything new and original to come forth.”

It is sad as shit … the last album I actually purchased was “Make Believe” … I can’t say that I’ve listened to the whole CD. I guess Weezer has released two albums since … The Red Album and Raditude … haven’t heard them … couldn’t bring myself to listen to see how far they’ve fallen … so what was it that compelled me to listen to a stream of their newest (and as of now, unreleased) record? Curiosity, I suppose. I don’t know … like a car accident you can’t seem to look away from, I found myself rubbernecking … looking back to see what has become of these four gentlemen from Weezer. Maybe I am just waiting for them to return to form … holding out hope that an album to rival Pinkerton’s rawness and beauty will be made again … After listening to all 10 tracks off the new album “Hurley” on their myspace, it is now safe to call off the search and rescue party, not because we’ve found survivors in the wreckage, but because there are no survivors. Weezer is officially dead to me. In case you want to hear for yourself: go here

But if you’re looking for something way more awesome [and this is the New (Awesome Shit)] …

Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino, is the shit. If you’ve been around, you know that we here at Roused feel this way about him. Whether he’s doing stand-up, acting on “Community”, writing for “30 Rock”, or being a supremely talented MC, he is awesome. He self-released an album earlier this year, “Culdesac”, and he’s been playing a few shows, and filming the new season of “Community”, and he came to Bumbershoot to perform stand-up … but even with all of this, he’s still finding time to make amazing hip hop … See?

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The Rap Map

Ever wondered about all those places, people, and events that are referenced in that new Cam’ron joint? Well, don’t bust your dome thinking too hard because there is The Rap Map to solve all those hard to figure references.

The, uh … geniuses over at Rap Geniuses, a site which “explains rap lyrics”, have devised the Rap Map to further help the listener find out exactly what/where the fuck Lil Wayne (et al) are talking about. The map includes the cities of New York, LA, The Chi, New Orleans, Detroit, and a handful of others … each place or event is marked by a handgun (how sad) … 2pac’s elementary school? That’s there … Lil Wayne’s boyhood home? That’s there too … as well as a shitload of other useless information, but holy shit, is this site addicting! It’s like a thug nasty version of googlemaps.

"Mapping the Gangsta Terrain of the Planet"

I might have to start listening to terrible hip hop just so I can use the resources available to me at Rap Geniuses … but then again, maybe I should just stick to, you know, awesome shit. And there’s always Girl Talk.

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how i got over. [the bandwagon.]

Oh, The Roots. Why doesn’t the world seem to understand what they have in you?

You can’t nail The Roots down in any way. Stylistically, artistically, content-wise. Led by the remarkable ?uestlove, they are always changing, always growing, always experimenting. Their newest album, How I Got Over, is no exception.

Whether they are sampling/collaborating with Monsters of Folk (Dear God 2.0), or at once making fun of auto-tune while also using it to its fullest potential by using the much maligned (and rightly so) effect to create the melody for a beat out of a baby crying (Hustla), The Roots are up to their old tricks again.

Lyrically, spearheaded by the amazing skill of their emcee Black Thought, their work always cuts to the heart of the cultural milieu, or, to use Black Thought’s own words, they / talk sharp like a razor blade under the tongue /

Black Thought always seems to see the world as it actually is, and pulls no punches in commenting on it, whether the subject is something huge like racism, something commonplace like romantic relationships, or something potentially touchy, like calling out their counterparts in world of Hip Hop.

It is more of the same on How I Got Over. However, there does seem to be a major difference this time around. The album is enormously hopeful. Not that their music was hopeless before, far from it, but this time it’s the primary theme I come away with after listening to the CD.

The album lives up to its name, it really feels like a document of how to get over whatever is in your way. The title track, featuring Dice Raw, chronicles how desire can survive inner-city life, where everything truly is against you. Everything seems to / teach us not to give a fuck / Yet, somehow these guys survived, and it seems like holding fast to hope is what did it.

Like U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which were both creative ways of saying ‘Love,’ for me this CD uses the same titular device to say ‘Hope.’

How they got over, was ‘Hope.’

Not just the evangelical, pop-mart, bullshit sort of hope. Real hope. Hope in the face of hopelessness is how we get over. Hope against reason. Foolish, irrational hope. And in the context of this CD, hope rooted in honest and uncertain faith. It’s hope by a group of men who continue to see the world as it is, who are still struggling to understand why we suffer so much, and why the world can be so ugly if it was created in God’s image.

Talent wasn’t enough to get The Roots over (although they have it in spades). It was enough to get them out of the setting described in the title track, but as the antics of 50Cent and Lil Wayne make clear, you can get out of the economic hardship and smothering systemic injustice created by poverty and racism and still not truly ‘get over.’

The Roots really did get over, never leaving behind the context they grew up in, but offering something beautiful out of it.

Personally, I tend toward cynicism and pessimism. I have trouble believing the world can get better. It’s painful to hope, to desire a better world, and pessimism is easier, safer. With this CD, The Roots have offered me a reminder that, / that type of thinking can’t get you nowhere / someone has to care /

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