Send "Asher Roth " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Nme |
 Dubbed ‘The New Eminem’ and ‘the saviour of hip-hop’, the level of hype surrounding Asher Roth is surprising, since he’s the McLovin’ of MCs; a normal, middle-class suburban US kid who’s mad on hip-hop, weed, girls, booze, and parties. Naysayers have tried to jeer about an unarmed white boy doing hip-hop, but it actually doesn’t feel ludicrous at all. We’ve all seen Superbad; we know and like this kind of dude, and by golly we’ll give him a chance. Smartly, Roth has been completely unapologetic about his background, and on the album immediately shoves hip-hop puritans’ faces in his world on ‘Lark On My Go-Kart’, going “Me and Teddy Ruckspin stirring up a ruckus/Egging all the houses, smashing all the pumpkins”. Such ’burbs snapshots are funny, but this is no mere pastiche. The effortlessly cool beats, hooky choruses, and above all, his witty, super-fast flow indicate this skinny blond to be a genuinely talented star. ‘Blunt Cruisin’’ is, yes, about driving around getting high, but check out the way when Roth spots cops, the stoned groove ups its tempo to reflect his paranoia. As with ‘I Love College’, his breakthrough hit, its unashamed celebration of young hedonism just manages to stay on the charming side of frat boy-ness. It all just seems to come so easy for Roth: on ‘La Di Da’ and ‘Fallin’’ he uses his Seinfeld eye for personal quirks to show he’s quite happy about who he is, and wants everyone else to be too. The album closes with ‘YOU’, a nicely weighted song about accepting yourself. “There’s no way around it, you are you” and other such repeated espousals of positivity bring a warmth to the album and further show Roth does, in fact, have a new vision for hip-hop; he wants it to be inclusive. The album pivots on ‘Sour Patch Kids’ as Roth halts the fun for a remarkable diatribe against Capitol Hill, which ends with a call for people to help each other: “It ain’t gonna stop with Obama/To save the world we must start at the bottom”. That may seem gauche, but when you think of the millions of kids who will buy this album and whose feelings it reflects, it suggests the President’s inauguration speech message of collective responsibility may actually be taking hold. So, not just a seriously fun party album but an inspirational one too. Over to you, Eminem......full text |
| Ew |
| What if Eminem pursued a degree in elementary education, popped his collar, and liked his parents? Though comparing an on-the-rise Caucasian rapper to the real Slim Shady may seem hopelessly facile, Asher Roth — the boyish 23-year-old behind the surprise top 10 iTunes hit ''I Love College'' — does initially come off like a junior-varsity Marshall Mathers, eerily echoing the 36-year-old superstar's nasal delivery and back-of-the-classroom cockiness. On this debut album Asleep in the Bread Aisle, Roth fully acknowledges the white elephant in the room with the song ''As I Em,'' intoning, ''Because we have the same complexion and similar voice inflection/It's easy to see the pieces and to reach for that connection...not much that I can say except I'm sick of it.'' In that case, he's going to be feeling ill for a good while. But if critics and mainstream hip-hop fans can find room in the game for more than one melanin-deficient MC, Roth might surprise them. ''College,'' his loping ode to women, weed, and one-dollar pizza slices, provides an irresistible dose of lowbrow higher-education hedonism. And though he makes good use of street-accredited guests like Cee-Lo (the soul-slicked ''Be by Myself'') and Jazze Pha (syncopated goof ''Bad Day''), Roth never floats sham tales of suburban hardship here. Instead, he just wants to have a good time — and for the most part, he provides one as well. B...full text |
| Rapreviews |
| Hip-Hop as music and culture has since its inception constantly been in a state of flux. Someone had to decide that toasting over breaks was cool, but recording them would be even better. Someone had to decide that a turntable could play those breaks, but could also become an instrument itself. Someone had to decide that rapping about parties was cool, but that rapping about social issues would make an impact. Someone had to bust a new move, create a new scratch, create a new burner style, and keep the cycle going. It is the very fluidity of hip-hop that has the tendency to keep the arts innovative and commercially viable. There's no shame in having a favorite year of rap, favorite subgenre of artists and records, favorite style of dance, living whatever definition of hip-hop works for you. The conflict comes when someone professes that only one of these things is "real" hip-hop and that all other variations are excluded. If that were the case hip-hop would have died out as a culture a long time ago. Every now and then an artist like Asher Roth comes along that causes turmoil for those who like to "keep it real." He doesn't have the pedigree that we tend to expect from hip-hop artists, even the ones who are conspicously absent in melanin. To some degree the Beastie Boys and Marshall Mathers of the world get a pass because they have an urban background and spent time in the right peer groups growing up to be "real" rap artists. Then the franchise of "real" gets pushed a little further by artists like Bubba Sparxxx. He's not so urban, but he grew up poor and hard, so real recognizes real. Then the realists have to content with similar sounding Southern rappers who may or may not have had it hard but SOUND like they fit in. Keep it real purists must feel like they've been stretched to the breaking point, which is why so many of them just SNAPPED when Asher Roth came out. He's not urban, he's suburban. He's not poor, he's quite comfortably middle class. He's from Morrisville, Pennsylvania. If you really want to pour salt in their wounds, point out that Asher Roth didn't even grow up listening to rap. He's your typical white kid who spent the 90's listening to records by Dave Matthews Band and Bruce Springsteen. There's so little in Roth's background that screams "real hip-hop" you'd have to break out an electron microscope to find an iota of it. Yet here he is, dropping a highly anticipated rap album called "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" on April 20th of all days. What does a guy like Asher Roth rap about?...full text |
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