Asher Roth Sizes Up His Chances

Suburbia’s most promising rapper weighs in at 140 pounds, and he’d like to add another 10 to 15. Right now he’s mostly bone. His face is carved in sharp angles, like a cartoon sketch. His chin comes to a point. His hair is tousled. His cheeks are unshaven. He’s 23 years old, his name is Asher Roth and he’s decided that—even though he’s got a record deal—he’s gonna keep his Toyota Corolla. 

He’s a wise-cracking, self-deprecating, stereotype-busting word nerd who grew up playing Little League in Morrisville, Pa., and started rapping seriously as a teenager once he got cut from the baseball team. “The first time I got in a battle rap,” he says over chicken wings and beer at Dantanna’s, an Atlanta sports bar, “I said, ‘Yo wassup, I’m Asher Roth and I’m the best / You shop at Ross, where you dress for less.’ And the funny thing was that I was shopping at Ross.”

Not long ago, Roth was a pizza-delivery boy (“always on time,” he says). Now he’s a major-label recording artist with a debut album, Asleep In The Bread Aisle, freshly on shelves. He takes great pleasure in noting that he used to work at Best Buy, and now his own CD is sold there. 

His profile has shot up due to “I Love College,” a frat-boy anthem about hookups and beer pong. “I guarantee people have formed their opinions based on ‘I Love College,’ and that’s it,” Roth says. “There’s no coming back: ‘Asher Roth—fuck him. Not feeling it.’” Stick around, though, and you may be surprised—Bread Aisle is an ambitious, rangy album by an MC with real talent. Roth spits double-time lyrics and internal rhymes, cracks some jokes, gives a motivational speech and pens an earnest ode to his dad. The album ain’t Straight Outta Compton, but it’s legitimate hip-hop that proves Roth is more than a rapping John Belushi or Eminem wannabe. 

“People are gonna hear it,” Roth says, “and be like, ‘Alright, what’s going on? I don’t know what this is. Is this rap? Is this hip-hop? Is this rock? Is this alternative?’ They’re gonna say I’m not hip-hop enough. They’re gonna say I’m not alternative enough. Call me corny, they’re gonna call me everything under the sun—and some people are really going to like it.”