Ladies and germs......Asher Roth

I'm guessing the majority of heads who visit my little site here aren't aware of this fella yet, so here's a brief catch-up: A new rapper from a suburb on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Discovered off of Myspace by Scooter Braun, a young, respected industry tastemaker based out of Atlanta. Yes, his voice sounds eerily similar to that of Eminem, and it's conveniently lazy to label him as a "wannabe Em" or whatever. Truth of the matter is, though, that he's a totally different artist than the Mathers fellow; Roth's tunes are much more upbeat, without the bitter angst and back-against-the-wall defiance, and he's more frat-boy-from-the-'burbs than slumdog-turned-millionaire. He's all about drinking, smoking, partying, chasing skirts, and occasionally examining self. As a songwriter, he's quite solid, which is proven by his cleverly-titled debut, Asleep in the Bread Aisle, which I heard last week, and highly impressed.

The actual reason why I'm bothering to post his first video on my little site is a different beast, really. Typically, I try not to bring too much of the hip-hop ish onto here, for my own personal reasons. I've had a couple convos with Mr. Roth, though, and I've realized that it'd be foolish for me to not endorse the guy. Why? Because he's me, in a sense. The sense that he's just a everyday White dude who grew up in the suburbs, had the love of a deep family and both parents, and happened to grow up loving and admiring rap music, without ever letting the culture change who he really was/is. Like me, he couldn't relate to a good 80% of what his favorite rappers spoke of (violence, drugs, inner city struggles, etc, etc.), and never approached the foreign subject matter with anything more than an appreciation of lyrical abilities and a out-of-his-norm fascination. Roth represents all the "Matt Barones" of the world in this respect (of whom I know plenty), so for that I must salute the dude. Also helps that he can actually rap well.

I also love knocking back beers and surrounding myself with drunk chicks, so we have that in common, to boot. Though my college experience looked nothing like this. If anything, I would've been the guy checking IDs at the party's entrance while wearing an extra-medium-sized yellow jacket. Instead of the one scooping up that sloppily-inebriated girl off the staircase and "making her feel better." So not fun.

So, yes, I'm an Asher Roth fan. Curious to see who else shares my sentiment here.

Asher Roth - "I Love College" (extra points if you catch the Weezer sample)