Album · The Roots
How I Got Over by The Roots
How I Got Over is an album by The Roots, released in 2010. 2 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 3 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “The Fire”, on 2 lists with a best position of #64.
How I Got Over, the Roots' ninth studio album, came out on Def Jam on June 22, 2010, while the Philadelphia band were holding down the house-band gig on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Black Thought and Questlove produced most of it with Dice Raw and Rick Friedrich, and the mood is hushed and heavy-hearted, a hip-hop record that keeps reaching over the fence for indie rock, gospel, soul, funk and neo soul.
The lyrics chew on self-determination, existential dread and the particular anxieties of the Black middle class, and the live band plays it low and slow, letting the gloom settle. "The Fire" and "Right On" are the tracks rock radio came back for. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200, landed on plenty of year-end best-of lists, and Robert Christgau later rated it the Roots' weightiest work and the best record of the 2010s.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from How I Got Over on radio countdowns
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.