MTV Base Meets Asher Roth

As I sit down with a rapper that has been hailed as many as the next big thing in Hip-Hop, I wonder to myself, am I about to interview an artist who one day will go down in musics ’Hall of Fame’, I think so, he can spit, I mean he can really rap, from tearing up Lil’ Waynes ‘A Milli’ to the student anthem ‘I Love College’ but by appearence the skinny, pale dude with vans slip-ons accompanied by a black hoody doesn’t have superstar written all over him, but who does these days, he certainly has swagger, has a look, and is probably one of the coolest guys you could meet. But what is going to open doors for him is that this is the era of the internet, an era of openess and musically less discrimination. So now is the time for Asher Roth to break the rap game, a product of a middle class humble upbringing in the suburbs of Phillidelphia. So how did the humble kid from Philli become the most talked about individual in Hip-Hop for the last few years? Well if you know my musical prefrence and have read my articles dotted over the internet you will know I have been supporting for a while, and so have MTV Base as a whole since the tape of 'I Love College' arrived on our desks. But now he has finally landed in the UK, a whirlwind tour where he was interviewed by all of your favourite DJ’s, dropped a 30-minute straight freestyle on Westwoods Radio 1 show, which is in modern rap terms, unheard of, nobody straight freestyles anymore, and certainly not for 30 minutes!

So what makes him so special Asher told us that, "I mean I guess the break for me was essentially being able to link up with Shaka Zulu, Steve Rifkin and Jay-Z and everything, but the real break musically was the green house effect with DJ drama and DJ Cannon, that was the break as far as people taking it seriously as a project and then when I remixed ‘a Milli’, where I turned it into like about ‘no one cares about your million dollars’ basically I totally flipped the perspective, I think that was one of the moments when people were like okay, cool, he can rap. Obviosuly my look is different, I'm pale as hell, and i rap good. What can I say, not to many about!"

Then as we ask him what his first big break is he smiles adding, "I guess the first big break was essentially being able to link up with Shaka Zulu, Steve Rifkin and Jay-Z and everything, but the real break musically was the green house effect with DJ drama and DJ Cannon, that was the break as far as people taking it seriously as a project and then when I remixed ‘a Milli’, where I turned it into like about ‘no one cares about your million dollars’ basically I totally flipped the perspective."

Asher also spoke about his high-profile support, ranging from Kanye West to Jay-Z to Andre 3000 to Cee-Lo, and he rapped with Mos Def in the summer, he said, "Yeah well Mos Def at Magic, that was dope, rapping with Mos was like WOW! And Cee-lo is now on the album, ‘Sleeping In The Bread Aisle’"

On his press tour of the UK he also hooked up with CHipmunk via. friend of MTV Base DJ Semtex, also he reportedly laid down a track with Mr. Hudson, and he also added to his support of the UK music movement be revealing to us that he has worked with Estelle on the new album, Asher commented, "Well the Estelle joint is called ‘She dont want a man’, I have two older sisters and the club songs you know, are usually all degrading to women as far as you know ’show your booty bitch’ or whatever and for me it was like you know, with two older sisters and with them being older they kind of drilled into my head not to be a douche bag! So I wrote a record about when they go to the club she just wants to dance on the dance floor she doesn’t want a slimy dude get all up and try to get her pregnant that night so that’s what it’s about, so for the track I wanted somebody classy but still fresh and Estelle’s very much that she classy and she’s dope, she’s a dope artist I didn’t want some pop sensation just for the moment, like Lady Gaga or something, haha, I wanted someone whose gonna stick around for a while. And Estelle at the same time that she heard about the project she knew it was very organic it’s not made up, it’s a genuine project."

My conclusion is that he may be billed as the new Eminem, but I will bill him as the Anti-Eminem, due to his complete different attitude to music and life, the only similarities I can find are that he raps well, he is white, and he has a slightly high pitched vocal tone, musically the content could not be further away, overall I would say he isn't just the Anti-Eminem, he is the Anti-Rapper helping rap back to the roots.

Luke Monaghan