The turning point came on an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon. I was sitting in my car in a grocery store parking lot, having just failed to muster the energy to buy food. My forehead rested against the steering wheel, and for the first time, I said the words out loud: I can’t do this anymore. The sentence hung in the stale air of the car, small and fragile. It was not a cry for help—it was an act of surrender. And in that surrender, something shifted.
: It is widely considered one of the best albums of 2010, praised for Black Thought’s lyrical maturity and Questlove’s precise production. the roots how i got over zip
In the years since its release, How I Got Over has been cited by Kendrick Lamar (as an influence on To Pimp a Butterfly ), by Noname, and by Rapsody as a template for how to be vulnerable without being weak. The Roots proved that you could be in your late 30s/early 40s, working a day job on television, and still make urgent, necessary art. The turning point came on an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon