Asleep in the Bread Aisle (SchoolBoy/LOUD/SRC/Universal)
It seems like it was only yesterday when Asher Roth was just another next generation MC. He had the internet buzzing with The Greenhouse Effect. Backed by mixtape kingpins DJ Drama and Don Cannon, the Morrisville, Pennsylvania rapper murdered Jay-Z’s “Roc Boys” and The Cool Kids’ “Black Mags,” quickly shooting from unknown status to viral celebrity. Hip hop fans debated whether Roth was the second coming of Eminem, or just a gimmick designed to reinvent the “white rapper” phenomenon. Those same critics will wonder why Roth’s Asleep in the Bread Aisle hits stores mere months after he signed his SRC deal, while talented black MCs with label deals sit in limbo for years. To most it’s plain: Asher got a hit on his side.
Blame Asleep in the Bread Aisle’s accelerated release on “I Love College,” an amiable ode to weed, women and $1 pizza slices that received much love from MTV last winter. Here, the frat-boy anthem drops early in the album’s sequence along with the quirky “Lark on My Go-Kart,” where he references Teddy Ruxpin and Tim Duncan over a crunchy ’70s-style rock beat. Asher can be a refreshing presence and he never pretends to be anything other than what he is: a nice suburban kid who can rap his ass off.
After that promising start, however, Asher loses focus. He floods the Bread Aisle with a series of interesting pop concepts ruined by bland choruses. For “Sour Patch Kids,” he twists socially conscious lyrics over a propulsive blend of Rhodes piano and garage-rock beats. “Don’t hate your dollas / Raise a child up / Help a mother, save a father / ’Cause poverty is probably our biggest problem / And it ain’t gonna stop with Obama / To save the world we must start at the bottom.” An amusing tale of a nightmarish airplane flight is saddled with a torturous Jazze Pha appearance on “Bad Day.” Asher even tries to skate on the club rap fad, with little success, on “She Don’t Wanna Man.”
The saving grace is modesty and a bit of self-awareness. On “As I Em” he bravely acknowledges comparisons to Slim Shady, his proverbial albatross, over a rousing rock steady track from Chester French, rapping, “If you have no other questions and have no other thoughts / then I’d like to introduce you to Asher Paul Roth.” In truth, Ash has as much in common with Em as he does 50 Cent. They rap. Still, for all of his touted promise, Asher needs to study the game a bit longer before he’s ready to graduate.
Roth's debut album hit stores on 4/20/09
Asleep in the Bread Aisle’s track listing:
- “Lark On My Go-Kart”
- “Blunt Cruisin’”
- “I Love College”
- “La Di Da”
- “Fallin’”
- “Be By Myself” feat. Cee-Lo
- “She Don’t Wanna Man” feat. Keri Hilson
- “Sour Patch Kids”
- “As I Em” feat. Chester French
- “Lion’s Roar” feat. New Kingdom & Busta Rhymes
- “Bad Day” feat. Jazze Pha
- “His Dream” feat. Miguel
- “Nothing You Can’t Do”
- “Perfectionist” feat. R. City & Beanie Sigel
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