The Roots: How I Got Over | CD review

(Def Jam)Their ninth album finds the Philadelphia veterans a unique voice in hip-hop. Becoming house band on Jimmy Fallon's US chatshow has led them to embrace indie culture, sculpting hard-hitting rap from a Joanna Newsom sample (Right On) and a Monsters of Folk song (the startling cry for help of Dear God 2.0). Elsewhere, the album is something of a rap equivalent of Marvin Gaye's era-addressing What's Going On. Global problems are played off against depictions of ordinary lives ("walk alone,...

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