Don't believe the hit

Asher Roth is a poseur. In a choice line from his debut album, Asleep in the Bread Aisle, the white MC flirts with controversy, cracking, “Mario Kart skills are outrageous. / Play me any day and I’ll be the best racist. / Wait, no, erase it. / Meant to say racer.” Naturally, I call him out. I challenge him to a Nintendo duel. The Pennsylvania native backpedals: “I gotta get my Wii game up. On N64, I’m disgusting. I’m getting better. I’m not… See, I didn’t single out which Mario Kart edition.”

For the last two months, Roth’s life has been in the fast lane. Thanks to “I Love College,” a ubiquitous fraternity anthem primed for spring break ’09, fame has come quickly. And success has its benefits. “I was in New York, driving in a van,” says the 23-year-old. “I thought, Man, it would be so dope to get a Wii right now.” At the snap of the nascent star’s fingers, a gratis Wii was waiting for him at his hotel.

But in the gift basket of overnight celebrity—aside from the video-game systems, chauffeurs, sexploits and MTV red carpet—come a steep critical backlash and ravenous haters. Pitchfork’s scathing review called Roth an “asshole” and his record “a marketing plan” while ripping his audacity for presumptively defending himself. The blog Indie Rock Sycophants dubbed him a douche bag and scrawled I ♥ SEX CRIME across his T-shirt with Photoshop. When I note that the majority of the bile is spewing from twentysomething Caucasian college grads, Roth says, “I’ve been getting that vibe, too.”

Yet the misrepresentative single is an awful introduction to a clever, witty rapper. For one, he doesn’t really rap in it. Two, the slack surfer-dude loop and “Chug! Chug!” chant come off like a stoned Sugar Ray begging your sister to take her top off.

Still, any university student or alum can’t deny that these hearty partyers exist. As Roth points out, “I’m one of those kids.”

Over the phone, the former elementary-education major at West Chester University speaks insightfully and politically, if also peppering the conversation with wisecracks and somewhat forced Snoopese slang like “yezzir.” Roth decries schools’ emphasis on “programming people for the cubicle.” It’s akin to hearing the Beastie Boys preach Tibetan freedom while their boobs-and-brewskis odes ruled the radio in 1986. So why do none of these pedagogical thoughts appear in the verses of “College”? Roth guffaws. “If I came out trying to preach that shit? People would be like, Are you serious? Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to smoke and drink.”

Like any modern American youth, Roth has grown up in a culture steeped in hip-hop. In “As I Em,” in which he addresses the media’s constant lazy comparisons to Eminem, Roth explains how his mother introduced him to beats and rhymes: “I was in seventh grade when I heard the Slim Shady LP. / My mom brought it down when I was ironing, irony.” If a parent—a yoga instructor and tarot-card reader from the Delaware Valley—is bumping R-rated rap records, why should it still be surprising to hear her light-skinned kid rock a microphone? “My dad cleans the house to my shit all the time,” Roth says. “My mom’s all into it, too. Her favorite is “Blunt Cruisin’.”

Despite his professed adoration for the institution, Roth never finished college. In his sophomore year, he was having a particularly awful day. His girlfriend dumped him; his MySpace videos, flashing his freestyling rhyming skills, were going unnoticed. On his dorm bed, Roth decided to give up the dream of pop stardom. At that exact moment, the phone rang. Scooter Braun, a marketing VP at So So Def Records in Atlanta, was calling after discovering Roth’s YouTube clips. He quickly became Roth’s manager.

This backstory’s such a Hollywood cliché, it’s a bit hard to swallow—much like an MC who jumps into odes to his father and tirades against the credit crunch after complete songs toasting drinking games and blow jobs. In conversation, however, Roth’s earnestness and charm sell it. Unfortunately, not everyone can schedule a chat to hear his considered thoughts on spirituality and soccer; nor will many folks be bothered to seek out Roth’s hilarious and verbose mix-tape from last year, The Greenhouse Effect. Most will get to know him only as that numbskull hollering “Freshmen! Freshman!” over the PA at the local pizza parlor.

Roth sighs deeply: “I might have screwed myself, dude.”

Asleep in the Bread Aisle is out now. For our full Asher Roth Q&A, click here.

Download Asleep in the Bread Aisle at iTunes | Buy it from Amazon.com

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