MC may have merit, but his party anthem doesn’t
By Jake Ayres
April 6, 2009 9:00 p.m.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the new great white hope: Asher Roth.
Or perhaps more accurately, the great white hype.
By now, I’m sure most of the college population has heard Roth’s hot new jam, “I Love College,” a paean to binge-drinking, smoking marijuana, frat parties and casual sex in an academic setting. Needless to say, the song has completely taken off, bringing the previously relatively unknown Roth to the notoriously treacherous doorstep of the mainstream.
Normally I would applaud any time a white dude can pull off being accepted by the hip-hop mainstream, but there’s just one problem: “I Love College” completely blows.
But before I ruin any chance of Roth putting me on, let me say that he himself isn’t all bad. On the Internet, Roth is consistently the subject of heated debate. Some people love him, some hate him, some hate him because he’s white, and some hate just for hate’s sake. This debate only intensified when hip-hop magazine XXL chose him as one of their “Freshmen 10″ of 2009, the magazine’s 10 MCs to watch.
The debate about whether Roth really is the next big thing seems to center around two things: the fact that he’s white, and the fact that he sounds like Eminem.
It was hard to be a white MC before Eminem (see Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark), but it might be even harder now due to the fact that the white rap hopeful will be compared to Eminem no matter what.
In Roth’s case, most of the similarities are purely superficial. True, Roth’s skin color is the same, and his voice bears a remarkable similarity to Em’s nasal bluster, but aesthetically the two are completely opposed. Em portrayed himself as an unstable psychopath jester who rapped on more than one occasion about violently murdering people, while Roth is a milquetoast collegiate dude who raps about frat parties.
But I digress. Even though they aren’t really alike anyway, hip-hop fans have to deal with the very real possibility that the media and music industry are grooming Roth to be the new preeminent white rapper.
And on the merits of “I Love College” alone, I’d say he’s unworthy. However, if you look at any of his freestyles or live footage, Roth seems like he’s at least semi-bonafide.
For example, BET aired Roth freestyling in an Obama shirt about peace and injustice. Plus two for Roth, especially in the “conscious rap” bracket. But what really won me over (pre-“I Love College”) was a freestyle Roth did, actually showing some wit by complaining about capers on his salad.
So this witty, scrawny, white, middle-class MC with a good deal of potential for making honest hip-hop songs turns around and just hocks up “I Love College.”
Way to go, Roth. You coulda been a contender.
I can praise honesty in rap all day long, until it’s completely stupid. I can almost guarantee that Roth has had most of the experiences detailed in the song, but it’s so ham-fisted and self-consciously “white” that it becomes unbearable. I was willing to give the song a chance, being that I like the kid himself, but then the bridge of the song comes along and seals the deal.
“Keg stand! Keg stand!”
“Freshmen! Freshmen!”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The oversimplication of college into a Belushi-style rager is nothing new, but this is just unconscionable.
It almost seems like Roth didn’t really go to college, because those who have know that no one actually chants that. Ever. Not even ironically.
The other thing is that Roth doesn’t even sound enthusiastic about it. He sounds bored with his own song, which may actually be the case, if this song is the ploy that I think it is.
Despite the asinine descriptions of college life, this song is taking hold. Here’s a guy who actually has something to offer the rap world, and he turns around and releases a dumb-as-a-rock party jam.
Oh wait. That’s what every single successful rapper does.
It’s a widely known fact that to even have a chance at being a successful rapper in the mainstream, you absolutely need a hot single for radio and other media to cram down the throats of 14-year-olds.
As a result, wonderfully talented rappers with something to say release songs that are below their skill and aspiration level just to get their feet in the door or stay relevant. Turn on the radio right now, and a good 90 percent will be about going to a club, dancing or seeing a girl at a club dancing.
So Roth has followed in those illustrious footsteps toward complete pandering. The only difference is the culture he’s selling out.
Where most party rap songs just reinforce negative stereotypes about rappers (e.g. drinking, smoking weed, going to clubs, going to strip clubs, etc.), Roth’s song does exactly the same thing for college students. It just reinforces the stereotype that college kids do nothing but party all night and live on pizza and Milwaukee’s Best.
Maybe I take so much issue because I’m in college myself, and it’s my culture that doesn’t actually ever chant “keg stand.” But that doesn’t change the fact that Roth’s misrepresentation of college life is so corny and awful.
If the last time you chanted “freshmen” was in high school as a joke too, e-mail Ayres at [email protected].
