Well, they're not the same. Not at all. Roth grew up in a small, sheltered town and went to college; Eminem grew up in a trailer park and dropped out of high school. Roth's raps are silly and childish and about having a good time; Eminem's are dark and satirical and about murdering his girlfriend. Sure, Asher Roth is basically the first white rapper since Eminem to make it big - but the similarities end there.
And making it big would be an understatement; Roth's about to make it bloody huge. His debut single, the tailor-made frat-boy anthem "I Love College," is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits of the year, and it's easy to see why. You can almost see Roth and his producers ticking off the boxes for a popular pre-game song, from the simple chorus ("I love college / and I love drinking") to the do-it-yourself bridge ("Chug, chug, chug!"). The song's so ubiquitous, it's even spawned its own Princeton-themed remake, with a rap from Eric Vreeland '10 that replaces the chorus with "I love Princeton / and I love thinking." Funny.
So "I Love College" was a story with a happy ending, a fun, throwaway rap song well on its way toward pop-culture phenomenon. As for Roth's debut album, "Asleep in the Bread Aisle?" Well, let me put it this way: Where "Slim Shady LP" had only two brief cameos, giving Eminem the space to display his considerable talents, "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" could almost be filed under "Various Artists." Roth may be the only person on the (quite silly) cover art, but the album itself is ungainly and overcrowded, with Roth's understated raps getting lost amid the glossy hooks and terrific guest verses. There's little doubt that Roth is a capable emcee, but even after 14 songs, one gets little sense of the real Asher Roth. Will he please stand up?
Half the time, Roth is playing the silly stoner kid from "I Love College," coming across like a goofy, hip-hop Beck. The cracked-out opener "Lark On My Go Kart" is about as mature as its name, with Roth proclaiming himself "king of the blumpkins" and then dishing out a series of increasingly bizarre non-sequiturs. The same pattern is repeated several times over, from the self-explanatory "Blunt Cruisin' " to the quite-fun-but-soon-annoying "La Di Da," which nabs the name of Slick Rick's 1985 hip-hop classic but little of its creativity.
Best of the stoner raps is "Bad Day," in which Roth shows off spellbinding storytelling skills as he narrates a nightmarish plane flight: "I silently plead, ‘Oh God, please let there be a honey sitting 27B' / but of course a morbidly obese / beast is in the seat / that wheezes when it breathes ... and when I thought that it couldn't get worse / I forgot my iPod."
The rest of the time, though, Roth just sounds like a gimmick - a geeky, white-boy rapper awkwardly paired with some of hip-hop's most charismatic and experienced artists. On "She Don't Wanna Man" - which, if you think about it, makes absolutely no sense - Roth does his best 50 Cent impression next to a chorus hook from R&B siren Keri Hilson. Unsurprisingly, Roth's 50 Cent is rather embarrassing, and hearing him toss out lines like "I'm the shit" is considerably less fun than hearing him rap, "I'm the king of the blumpkins."
Even more dispiriting is "Lion's Roar," a forced and unfunny sex rap in which a whirlwind guest verse from Busta Rhymes leaves Roth reeling in the dust. True, almost anyone sounds snail-paced next to Busta's demented, light-speed flow, but Roth manages to sound particularly bland. He certainly doesn't help himself with awkward lines like "Ready now, get set / I'm gonna smack that butt / I'm gonna grab them breasts."
Occasionally, there's a hint of a more mature and thoughtful emcee lurking behind the party boy exterior, someone who can do more with his lyric pad than rhyme about boobs and blumpkins. Perhaps fittingly, one of these moments is the aforementioned "As I Em," in which Roth pulls off a surprisingly good imitation of Eminem's terse, rapid-fire rapping style. Maybe it's just so he can rhyme "same complexion" with "similar voice inflection," but either way, it's one of his strongest vocal performances.
The same goes for the album's two best tracks, tucked in at the tail end of the record and therefore unlikely to be heard by anyone who's bought the CD just for "I Love College." That's a shame, because "His Dream," which tells the poignant, perhaps semi-autobiographical story of a father living vicariously through his children, reveals an utterly different side of Asher Roth. No longer bragging about his pong skills or his high alcohol tolerance, Roth turns in a captivating and even vulnerable performance. Again, it's in the moments that he plays up Eminem's influence that Roth himself is most interesting.
That's certainly the case with the other late-album treat, "The Lounge," in which Roth picks apart all the stereotypes about rappers one by one with a series of brilliantly pointed rhetorical questions. Over a smooth-as-butter jazz-rap backing, Roth demonstrates a quick wit: "I'd like to know what makes a rapper... What if he's a she and not a he at all? / Or does a broad have to be a C at least? / Or can it be decreased if she real up on the beat? / And is she realer if she raised in the street? / Or can they still feel her if she raised in C.T.?"
Clearly, this isn't the Asher Roth of "I Love College" or the try-hard trading lines with Keri Hilson on "She Don't Wanna Man." This is a Roth that crops up far too rarely on his debut. Between the stoner, the thug and the thinker, I'd take the latter any day.
Of course, there's no denying that "Asleep in the Bread Aisle" is a unique prospect for a mainstream rap album in 2009. Its name, for one thing, sits rather at odds with the week's other high-profile release, "Deeper than Rap" by the tubby Miami emcee Rick Ross (such modesty!). And, admittedly, it's a rare treat to hear an hour and a half of rapping with no mention of guns or jewelry. But in practice, Roth's debut album is neither as interesting nor as entertaining as it could be. The real Asher Roth has yet to reveal himself, and the obfuscation's certainly not the result of any Eminem-like identity play.
My advice? Stop calling yourself a blumpkin. That might help.
3 paws
Pros: Proof that not all mainstream rap records are about bitches and bling.
Cons: Too many producers, too many guests and little sense of Roth's personality.
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