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Music Review: @AsherRoth – Retro Hash

Mark Harris
Feature, Music, The Studio

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Asher Roth has had his fair share of ups and down in the industry. At the beginning, he started off as a promising emcee that happened to be Caucasian. Once he was signed, he dropped the “I Love College” single and the Sleeping In The Bread Aisle album to mixed results. Many wrote him off as a gimmick. Others thought he was just simply lame. Regardless, Asher Roth persevered.

 

Now, after numerous mixtape drops between that first album and now, we have Retro Hash. This album promises a fully renewed Asher Roth. What I gathered is that Asher is trying to transcend beyond hip hop (for whatever it is worth).

 

Do not get me wrong: he can still rhyme with the best of them. “Dude” lets him exercise his lyrical ability over a funky drum pattern, keys, and strings. Although sing-songy, “Fast Life” gives us some worthwhile 3rd person point of view from Asher and a dope Vic Mensa feature. “Last of the Flohicans” lets Asher get busy over a rock guitar and an even bigger rock chorus. Thus, there are times of many rhymes on this album.

 

The quizzical situation is the schemes that do not involve rhymes, or hip hop styling, in any form or fashion. Much of the album is practically teetering on the rock side of things. “Tangerine Girl” is a fun song that involves no rhyme schemes at all. On “Keep Smoking”, Asher did more singing with Chuck Inglish doing the rhymes. This may throw some listeners off. However, this album seems to be Asher Roth’s exhibition of personal musical growth.

 

And I am not saying that is a bad thing. I am just making sure that one thing is understood: this album is not a contemporary hip hop album in much of its creation and justification.

 

With that said, Asher Roth made a hip hop album that is not fully hip hop at all. It could be seen as his evolution. It could be seen as some hippy experiment toward his newfound “happiness”. I do not know what to make of it. The production is cool. The rhymes are dope when they occur. At the end of the day, this will not be everybody’s cup of tea.

 

Personally, I think Asher planned it that way from the album’s establishment.

 

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