Asher Roth hasn’t worn underwear in a week. “We don’t get the opportunity to do laundry, and I’m constantly on the road!” he says. It’s a rare day off, and when the 23-year-old rapper sees his battered travel duffel sitting on the floor of the bedroom he still keeps at his parents’ suburban Philadelphia home, he just wants to kick it.
“I’ve been living out of that bag for 18 months,” says the MC, who released “The GreenHouse Effect” mixtape to raves almost exactly a year ago and has watched his “I Love College” single blow up nationwide in recent months. Still, despite a Top 10 debut album (April’s “Asleep in the Bread Aisle”), Roth’s luggage space remains limited on tour: “I’ve had these same seven outfits,” he half-laughs and half-laments.
But the one-time elementary education major and current college dropout isn’t complaining about his newly jet-set lifestyle. “It has its ups and downs, but at the end of the day, it’s a blast,” says Roth. “I’m doing something. I come from the land of Morrisville, Pa., where a lot of people get stuck into nine-to-fives, and I’ll tell you what, I make pretty good money and it’s way better than digging a ditch.”
Right after a wild week in Vegas and right before heading into a summer tour with another rising rap star, Kid Cudi, Roth told Metromix about what went down in Sin City, his thoughts on fellow Philly hip-hoppers the Roots and their new late-night TV gig, and some of the MCs that helped inform his flow—aside from that Shady guy in “8 Mile” to whom he constantly gets compared.
Did you have a crazy time in Vegas?
Vegas got dirty! Did you see the tweet about Recognize [Roth’s touring DJ] getting married?
No—what?!
It wasn’t true—it’s not binding. I mean, it’s true, it just wasn’t a real marriage. But dude, we went all in! I didn’t sleep the first night—didn’t sleep until 3 p.m. the next day for a three-hour little power nap, and then the next day…er, night, we were up until 11 o’clock the next morning. But I had a successful night on blackjack and roulette—at about 6 o’clock in the morning, I left up $250, so I can’t complain. Other than that, we had fun, got some performances in, met some cool people and DJ Recognize, my man, who is really one of the funniest people ever, got married—with the pastor being my business manager who came to party with us. He married this, like, 33-year-old. [Laughs.] It was pretty funny. The video will be out real soon!
Have you been watching your hometown boys the Roots on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”?
I have, I have. I don’t get a chance to watch it every night or anything like that, but I peeped them a couple times. I mean, I love them, man. I’ve actually developed a decent rapport with them. I can absolutely walk up to them and they all know my name and they’re all showing love and giving hugs. I spent some time in [Roots collaborator] Larry Gold’s studio when I was real young, so a bunch of those guys—Kamal and Knuckles and those guys—were the first to congratulate me when they saw that things went well.
What about a Roots-Roth collaboration?
I’m hoping! Those guys are really influential in how I get down, but obviously they’re in complete opposite stages in their lives. Those guys can tour or do anything they want whenever—they’re the epitome, to me, of success in the sense of respect and longevity. But I’m really hoping, man. Those are guys that really, to me, are hip-hop.
Who are some other MCs that have been important to you?
Who was real big in how I got down was Talib Kweli. When I started listening to the Reflection Eternal [Kwali’s collaboration with DJ Hi-Tek] LP, I was just like, “Whoa!” And Big Pun, Mos Def, obviously—the “Black Star” album and even “Black on Both Sides.” It’s about expressing yourself more than telling your story. You can write about anything—they’re just words. I could write about a chair if I wanted to, I could talk about my mom’s leased vehicle—any of this stuff. So the fact that hip-hop has kind of limited itself to, like, six recurring themes of drugs, money, bitches, whatever and what have you, I’m realizing how wide open the playing field is for expressing yourself and dealing with things.
That’s all I want: I want to make music with some substance and some content, and also get people talking. Nothing has been better than having me—a stupid little white kid from Morrisville, Pa.—split the room and now have these people talk about why they hate me and these people talk about why they like me. We have people talking. We have opinions flying.
