Asher Roth....what are you doing?

Unfortunately, the only thing I feel many hip hop fans have heard of Asher Roth is his "hit" song "I Love College" which has recently made its way into the top ten on ITunes. While the frat boy anthem is quite catchy, sampling Weezer's hit "Say It Ain't So," it lyrically is not what you would expect from a kid being hailed as the next Eminem and who has made the cover of XXL magazine with the likes of Wale and B.o.B. Asher Roth is a gifted artist and has much more material than that song. But his mixtape, The Greenhouse Effect, has gone largely unnoticed by the casual hip hop fan. It may be their fault that they aren't looking deeper, but Asher has not helped himself recently. On HipHopDX.com last week, and website frequented by any person calling themselves a hip hop head, Asher dropped a few "freestyles," if you can call them that. Using classic beats, such as Jay-Z's "The Takeover" and "Song Cry," Asher proceeded to rap like any regular kid would when asked to freestlye and ruined two beats that should never ever be ruined. It was truly awful. Some of the simplest rhymes I have ever heard were flying out of the mouth of a rapper who I think is going to be the next big thing. Granted, he did actually freestyle (if that shit was written then Asher should put down the mic right now) which I give him credit for doing. I can't tell you how many rappers go on TV and "freestyle" aka spit something they wrote down and have been practicing for months now. But Asher sounded like Soulja Boi on the mic, rhyming words like "fun" and "done" and any other three or four letter words you can think of. I don't get it because the kid has talent. The Greenhouse Effect is a great mixtape, with Asher firing lyrical bullets left and right. Download that and you will see what I mean, the kid is going to be a beast in the rap game. But, Asher, put away those freestyles because they are doing nothing to get people excited about that album dropping in April.