After listening to Asher Roth's debut album, "Asleep in the Bread Isle," two things will become immediately clear: Asher Roth loves college, and he didn't major in rapping.
Roth pleads to be seen as his own kind of rapper, not just another Eminem, and in this endeavor he is successful. Eminem is probably the most respected white rapper ever, and he earned this title by having incredible flow, legendary freestyling and the ability to convey some pretty intense emotions through his music. Asher Roth, on the other hand, has about as much flow as Shaquille O'Neal. While his songs are catchy, due mostly to solid producing work by Oren Yoel and David Appleton, Roth's rhyming lacks the energy to live up to his songs' beats.
The song with the most egregious lack of energy is the single "I Love College." The guitar, drum and bass beat have all the makings of a rap classic, but Roth sounds, perhaps appropriately, like he is sporting a serious hangover.
Rapping in a slow and laid-back style is nothing new to the genre, as Lil Wayne and Jurassic 5's Chali 2na have both pulled it off very well. Roth's rap predecessors, however, are able to put a lot of feeling into their rhymes even without a fast-paced beat or speedy rhyming. The only way to get entertainment from Roth's rapping in "I Love College" is to listen to the track's ridiculous lyrics. This ode-to-college overindulgence is as creative as "American Pie Presents Beta House" (2007).
Listeners will no doubt recognize and perhaps even relate to cheers of "freshman," "do something crazy" and "keg stand" from their weekly get-togethers, and the song is also packed with valuable advice like "don't have sex if she's too gone" and "when it comes to condoms, put two on." While these lines may succeed in drawing chuckles, the song feels more like a Weird Al parody than a serious hip-hop venture. Half the time, we're not laughing with you, Asher Roth, we're laughing at you.
In "As I Em," Roth lets us know that he is not Eminem. A notable line is "they keep relating me, I can't get away, chasing me." It's not clear who exactly is insisting that Roth is the next Eminem, but rapping about him for a whole song doesn't seem like a particularly effective way to stop the comparisons. The song itself, however, isn't bad. Roth's voice has more emotion behind it when he is talking about his past, and the beat is very easy to move to. However, one listen to the Eminem track of similar name, "The Way I Am," will show you that Roth has a long way to go before he can match the intensity and power of his predecessor.
The best song on the album is probably "Be By Myself." Roth collaborates on this track with legendary hip-hop artist Cee-Lo Green. Green, most famous as the voice of his newest band, Gnarls Barkley, is the modern king of hip-hop singing, and the combination of Green's belting and Roth's sluggish rhymes makes the song the most enjoyable on the record.
"Asleep in the Bread Aisle," as a whole, is a sub-par hip-hop album. Roth has clearly spent much of his youth listening to his rap heroes, but his ability to bring something new, exciting and entertaining to the genre is still underdeveloped. With better rappers in the game today like Blackalicious, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne, Asher Roth seems watered down and lacks the "it" factor of his contemporaries. Hip-hop fans would be advised to pass on this album.
